


Mr West

by killjoylincoln



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Downton Abbey Fusion, Disabled Bucky Barnes, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23917984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killjoylincoln/pseuds/killjoylincoln
Summary: The tables were still set with a ruler and the maids were certainly not allowed in the dining room if Mr Coulson had anything to say about it.  Lords always married ladies and upper-class and lower-class friendships have always been and, depending on who you ask, should always be forbidden. But it was 1914 and things were changing. Women were fighting for their right to vote and war was on every page of the newspaper. A new footman at Howling Castle was hardly a matter of any importance but for James Barnes, the second son of the Earl of Brooklyn, the arrival of Steven Rogers changed everything.Or, Downton Abbey AU!
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have watched Downton Abbey too many times (historical mistakes by me are very likely)

**April** **1914**

**I**

The night promised to be a dull affair.

It was another one of father’s mundane dinner parties featuring all the respectable lords and ladies and their prominent children. Their sons will no doubt boast about their achievements in my face and my mother will surely attempt to throw one of the many ladies in my direction. She consistently and quite impressively remains oblivious to every prospective females’ distain for my status as second born and, for lack of a better phrase, my inadequate number of limbs.

Brock, on the other hand, will no doubt find much amusement in the night’s festivities. As the first born, twenty-five years of age and unwed, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain on an evening such as this. He will flirt with the ladies and smoke with the men and be, indisputably, the champion of the party. No one will pay any attention to _poor_ _James_ and I will be forced to endure several arduous hours playing the good son while Samuel continuously yet surreptitiously refills my wine glass. Beyond a doubt I will retire early with some fabricated excuse no one will question and spend the rest of the party in the safety of my bedroom pretending I cannot hear them.

“Are you not dressed yet?”

I could see Brock out of the corner of my eye standing at my bedroom door that I had closed precisely so as to avoid a situation like this one.

Speaking to the window without so much as sparing him a glance I said, “It’s still several hours away.”

“You have not washed from riding.”

“So?”

“Do not embarrass me tonight, James. You owe me that much.”

I looked over sharply but Brock had already gone. I couldn’t make sense of his words but it did put me in a foul mood. I rang for a bath. Peter, our newest and severely inexperienced hall boy, drew one for me. He seemed surprisingly adequate until, after several moments of me fighting with the packaging on a bar of soap, asked if he could assist me. It was the usual tantrum. I yelled at the top of my lungs and raised my (one) fist at him until he scarpered. Fuming and embarrassed, I sunk into the bath like a sullen child. Soap-less, save for the measly remnants of the last bar, I stared bitterly at the cased soap laying on the ground where I’d thrown it. It seemed to mock me.

_James_ _Barnes_ _._

_Second_ _son_ _of_ _the_ _9_ _th_ _Earl_ _of_ _Brooklyn_ _._

_Defeated_ _by_ _a_ _bar_ _of_ _soap_ _._

I submerged my head under the water. It was pleasant under here; I could no longer hear people or the castle or really anything at all.

I wondered how long it would take for them to notice if I drowned. Probably hours. Poor Peter. He would find me pale and pruned with wide unseeing eyes staring straight through him.

I lunged forward in the water, breaking the surface and gasping for air. My thoughts were stupid. I would find Peter, apologize, and be done with it all.

After drying, I began to dress. Slowly. I could dress in half the time if I hadn’t dismissed all the valets and footmen father sent to help me. I was disabled, no sense in denying it, but I refused to be looked at like a downed deer.

Finally ready at half seven, I resolved to find Peter to apologize and drink at least one cocktail before dinner was served and have my usual anxious meltdown in the library away from prying eyes.

I found Peter easily enough. He was tending to the fire in the Great Hall, covered in soot, looking like a kicked puppy. I apologized for what I’d said, which he kindly accepted, and then I told him he’d better hurry before mother saw and had a fit. He nodded vigorously and if I hadn’t been worried about getting my dinner jacket dirty, I would have tousled his hair.

Entering the drawing room, I was immediately pounced on by mother who criticized my hair and the state of my clothes and adjusted my bow tie so energetically it nearly choked me. I made my usual rounds to prove I had been there, speaking quickly and curtly to my brother, then moving on to my father who was speaking to the town physician.

“James, excellent to see you,” Dr Strange said, nodding his head at me. “I’d hoped to see you this evening.”

“The pleasure is mine, Dr Strange.” My smile was as false as this whole entire façade. “As much as they may wish to, they can’t remove me that easy. If you’ll excuse me.”

I bowed my head and took my leave. My father would be furious but there was little he could do in the presence of those who weren’t in the family. Jarvis held the door open for me. He was trying not to smile. I winked at him as I strode past. Finally alone in the library I rang the bell. On a night such as this one, at this time, Samuel would know what to do.

As I waited for my drink, I sat anxiously on the window seat. The night was cool and I could feel the air seeping in through the glass. I brought my feet up onto the cushion, curling in on myself. It was an old habit from when I was a child, a way to hide my lack of limb. It got easier over the years. I began to care less or perhaps some vindictive part of myself enjoyed making others feel uneasy. I was a gentleman, highborn, not unattractive. I would have married a wealthy beautiful lady and had many sons to remember my legacy.

Except…

Except… no family wanted a disabled man for a son-in-law, no lady would even look at me, and it had been years since someone had even touched me.

The door at the far end opened.

“Come in, Samuel,” I said softly, eyes still trained on wide world outside. “They’re all in the drawing room.”

Quiet footsteps approached. Samuel was usually louder than this, making some sort of quip or perhaps pouring a drink for himself as well. Tonight it seemed as if he could sense my displeasure.

“I know I say this every time,” I murmured, “but tonight I really don’t think I can do it. It’s always the same, isn’t it? The same people, the same food, the same miserable wine. The same damn conversation. Father will ignore me, Brock will point out my failures, and mother will try to mention me as often as she can until she too will abandon the whole thing.”

I held out my hand. Wordlessly, Samuel passed me an empty glass.

Eyes still far away from this place I said, “And don’t mistake her actions for love, oh no. I learned that lesson long ago. She does it out of duty and honour, out of the desire not to have me in her house anymore where she can’t bear to look at me.”

Like a pathetic child, I buried my head in my knees so that Samuel wouldn’t see that I was so emotional. I held up the glass that was shaking in my hand and, meekly, said, “I think I’ll take that drink now, Samuel.”

There was a pause, a moment where no drink was poured and no movement was made. Then a large warm hand enveloped mine to stop it from shaking and my heart stopped for a moment because someone was touching me and I knew, somehow, that it was not Samuel.

I unfurled myself and fell off the bench, gaping at the strange man I’d never seen before. He steadied me. The wine glass slipped out of my hand and smashed onto the floor but I barely noticed.

The man was tall and handsome, dressed like a footman. He had blond hair and a kind face that was marred with worry and his hand was still holding me.

“You should be wearing gloves,” I said stupidly.

The man’s face moulded into the perfect mask of obedient servant. “Mr Coulson couldn’t find ones big enough for me.”

I continued to stare at him. It was far too late now for protocol; he’d already seen me cry, seen how weak and miserable I was, and he’d even had to catch me from a fall like a pitiful invalid.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Steven Rogers. The new footman.”

“Where’s Samuel?”

“He was delayed in the kitchen and asked me to attend to you.”

I nodded repeatedly then, for lack of anything better to say, said, “Well, I’m glad he’s alright.”

When Steven Rogers said nothing, I realized what a complete fool I had made myself out to be. Extracting myself from his arms and for the first time not hiding my left shoulder behind my back said, “What you must think of me.”

“Not at all,” Steven replied easily. He had nothing further to say so I surmised he was either shy or unaccustomed to speaking to someone like me. I expected the latter. Or possibly both.

“I should clean this up,” I said, nodding towards the broken glass.

“Let me,” Steven said, already bending down. Stubbornly I bent down to help him. We hid the broken pieces in the potted plant near father’s desk and stood up, grinning.

“Shame about that,” I said. “I really needed that drink.”

Casting a quick look about him, Steven took down a decorative vase from above the fireplace and cleaned it with a quick wipe from the end of the curtains. I watched, both horrified and completely entertained, as he poured a generous amount of wine into the substitute glass and offered it to me.

“You’re mad,” I said, slightly breathless. “I could have you dismissed for that.”

I wouldn’t of course. I took a large sip of wine and, without hesitation, proffered it back to him.

“I insist,” I said.

He drank. We shared it back and forth until Steven’s cheeks were pink and I found the prospect of the night ahead less daunting.

“I must go,” I said, finally acknowledging that the noises from the hall were the guests going through.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

I felt stupid, like the drink had gone straight to my head. “Yes, well.” I fixed my pinned sleeve for something to do with my hand. “You may go.”

He inclined his head and said nothing and I watched as his incredible frame left the room with surprising agility. I looked down at the potted plant, bits of glass winking in the dying light.

Shaking my head and banishing all thoughts of the new footman, I entered the main hall as James Barnes, second son of the Earl of Brooklyn.

The scared little boy who couldn’t talk to strangers and who drank wine out of vases was nowhere to be found.


	2. Chapter Two

**II**

I do not hate living in the castle for all the hurt it has caused me.

My room is the very same I spent my youth in, the place where I learned how different I was and how no amount of money could change that. I can remember, vaguely like a false memory, how Brock and I used to play together before he too realized what I was.

I liked walking the grounds and running through the gardens for they seemed much bigger when I was smaller. I would read books on the warm grass and swim in the river at the edge of the estate. Before Samuel came I did not have any friends.

When Brock reached the age of maturity father introduced him to matters of the estate for, when he died, Brock would become the next Earl. When I reached maturity father gave me a pocket watch which I traded the next day in the village for a bottle of whisky.

Howling Castling was never a home to me but for all the bad memories it kept in its walls, it also saved the good ones. 

The morning after father’s party, I awoke late and completely naked in bed with a mild hangover and a wet pillow from where I’d managed to upend a full glass of water. I sat up, the blankets tight around me. The room was freezing for the servants knew not to disturb me early in the morning by tending to the fire. Thirsty and suddenly ravenous, I dressed quickly and left my room only to walk directly into something very large and very hard. 

“Ouch,” I said flatly.

“My sincerest apologies, Mr Barnes.”

I looked up. And up. Steven was standing tall and confident, unaware he had called me by the wrong name. Another time perhaps I would not have cared but as it were, mornings were not the time to cross me.

“I believe you have mistaken me for another,” I said coolly, automatically tucking my bad shoulder behind my back. “If you are looking for Mr Barnes, he is the pompous ass who resides down the hall. If you are looking for Mr James, however, you have found me.”

He coloured. I took a moment longer to assess him in the light of day. He had sandy blond hair and a kind face and was without a doubt the most perfectly muscled specimen I had ever encountered.

“Apologies again, Mr James,” he said. “I meant no offence.”

“Wonderful,” I drawled, exiting my room and forcing him to step out of my way. “No offence taken but more importantly why are you bothering me?”

Steven bowed, acknowledging my status. “Apologies again. I’m-”

“If you apologize one more time I’ll have you dismissed.”

“Sorr-”

I frowned. Steven trailed off. Turning on my heel, I marched off in search of where I might find Peter. After several moments I realized Steven was following me.

“Not to be rude,” I said, “but can you go away?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr James. I was sent to ensure that you make your way promptly to the library.”

I kept walking but looked over my shoulder at Steven’s wide-eyed, innocent face. “And why haven’t you detained me? I suppose it was my father who sent you.”

“It was. You’re supposed to be down there now with Lord and Lady Brooklyn and Mr Barnes.”

“Oh, _now_ you get the etiquette right.”

Steven didn’t answer. I suppose I’d frightened him and he’d leave me alone and never speak to me again. Sighing, I stopped walking and turned around.

“Fine, you win. If you see Peter, tell him my room is ready for him. He never seems to be around when I need him.”

“Of course.”

“And tell Samuel to find me later.”

I waited expectantly. Steven’s eyes flicked to where my left sleeve was pinned up.

“I will tell them, Mr James.”

“Thank you, Steven.”

I left for the main staircase. I felt bad for him. He seemed too nice for this world, too kind hearted to be a third footman in a dismal castle desperately clawing for purchase in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Things were changing. It was April 1914. War was in the air, women might get the vote, and life the way we were used to was teetering on the edge of a revolutionary precipice. Men like Steven wouldn’t last. I do not believe he will be here for long.

I expected that within the month I wouldn’t even remember our encounters or who Steven Rogers was.

In the library, Jarvis was serving tea when I entered. He placed my cup on father’s desk but Brock shoved both cup and saucer into my hand for he knew I couldn’t drink it one-handed while holding both.

“Good morning, dear brother,” he said.

I didn’t answer. Mother, who was watching us over the rim of her own tea, said nothing.

“Excuse my tardiness,” I said, reverting into my usual state of standoffish indifference. “I didn’t want to come. What has happened?”

I feared my father’s furiously tight grip would shatter my mother’s poor porcelain cup but he found some semblance of composure and said, “The refurbishment of the village library has finished. A Barnes must be there for the opening.”

I relaxed. Father never chose me to represent the family for, as Brock never fails to remind me, I don’t set any standards in our family.

“James, you’ll go,” my father said. 

“Fuck,” I said accidentally.

I left hastily after that, my cheek smarting from where my father had hit me. My eyes watered and I wiped them furiously, annoyed at myself for letting him affect me as he does.

I left the castle immediately and set off down the road on foot. The villagers greeted me as I passed once I reached the village. They stopped and waved, acknowledging me by appropriate name and status. The shops and the village inn bore my surname and the public house served a special drink for me every year on my birthday.

I was a well-respected fraud.

The proprietor of the library received me outside with his wife and two young children. The girl was old enough and had clearly been warned. The boy stared.

The proprietor whose name I’d accidentally forgotten served tea and biscuits, neither of which I touched. At half noon, we met the small crowd that had gathered. The proprietor spoke. I said a few words that sounded like disingenuous ramblings. When the villagers who wished to inspect the new library were let it, they gifted me a wide berth as if I smelled rotten or they were afraid of me. Inside they commented on its size and its beauty and I didn’t tell them the library at the castle was twice as big and immeasurably more lovely.

I remained out of sight behind the stacks of books, trying to gauge what would be the appropriate amount of time I had to stay. The village folk must have thought I had left or, perhaps worse, they simply did not care.

“Awful,” a man said, not bothering to lower his voice. “It’s shameful to the family, that’s what it is.”

Another man’s voice answered, more harshly than the first. “If I had Lord Brooklyn’s prominence, his notoriety, his money… I would have shipped the poor deformed boy off as soon as I could.”

I left through the backdoor. I didn’t inform the owner who had been nothing but gracious nor did I bid his wife goodbye as was expected of me. I walked home scowling in the rain that seemed to have begun just to irk me and let the water soak through to my skin as a manner of punishment. My family was surely being served tea for no one was at the door to greet me and I could sneak up the stairs unnoticed.

My room had been tended to and there was a fire burning brightly in the grate. I undressed and left my wet clothes unceremoniously on the floor. Someone, Peter certainly, had placed my nightclothes on the mantle above the fireplace and the soft trousers were pleasantly warm when I pulled them on. Carrying the nightshirt limply in my hand, I studied myself in the mirror, something I do not often do.

My chest was smooth and well-defined, a small scar across my waist from a cruel prank Brock had played on me long ago. My right arm was taut with muscle, strong from years of overwork. There was a cluster of freckles on my elbow that when connected looked a bit like the shape of Italy.

I do not have another elbow.

I pulled on the shirt, unable to look anymore. It wasn’t late, not yet half five, but I felt tired as if I’d made the walk to the village ten times over.

I laid in bed and stared into the depths of the fire.

Dinner came and went and no one came to check that I had returned.


	3. Chapter Three

**III**

I awoke late to Peter making far too much noise as he set my fire.

“Peter,” I said, my voice muffled by my pillow. “For the love of Christ, please be quiet.”

“I’m sorry, Mr James,” Peter said. “I was told to wake you by her Ladyship.”

I groaned. The light in the room suggested that I’d already missed breakfast which indicated that my mother would be furious and that Brock would absolutely be bursting with mirth.

“Where are they?” I mumbled.

“In the library, Mr James. Having tea, I believe.”

I dismissed him. Dressing quickly, I hastened to the library, nearly bowling over Darcy when I met her on the stairs.

“Sorry, Darcy, sorry,” I said, righting her with my hand on her arm. She blushed furiously and bowed, running off without a word. Samuel was at the bottom of the stairs, standing upright and proper, bearing a smirk that was incredibly annoying.

“Shut up,” I snapped at him.

“Good morning, Mr Barnes,” he said primly in an exaggerated posh accent. I fumed.

“He told you, didn’t he,” I said. Samuel said nothing. “Has he never worked in a proper house? Is he an imbecile that doesn’t understand the basics in that it is the heir who takes the surname and all other useless sons are called by their first name only? Is he an imbecile, Wilson?”

“No,” he said, then, “your highness.”

I shoved past him and entered the lion’s den. All eyes turned to me.

“Good morning,” I said, trying for pleasantries.

“It’s noon,” my mother answered without emotion.

So no pleasantries then.

I sat beside Brock who was positively beaming and accepted a tea from Jarvis.

“Who were you talking to out there?” Brock asked in mock politeness. “We heard voices.”

It was clear I wasn’t going to get out of this alive so I gulped scalding hot tea and said, “Samuel.”

My mother _tutted_. “I don’t approve of how much you talk to that boy.”

“Which part don’t you like, mother?” I said tiredly. “That he’s a servant? Or that he’s black.”

I spent the rest of the day confined to my bedroom, without meals or books to keep me occupied. I sat by the window and brooded, watching bitterly as Brock and his friend Alexander Pierce prepared to ride. Mr Pierce was chatting to Maya who was serving them wine. The new footman was attending to the horses but kept shooting Mr Pierce angry looks. Maya looked distinctly uncomfortable at the attention and it appeared as if Steven was only moments away from throwing a punch.

I watched intently, hoping, _praying_ , that the muscled Adonis would put stupid Brock and stupider Alexander in their place. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t. He would lose his position here and not receive a reference and the rest of his working life would be ruined.

When Maya had returned inside and the men had galloped off, Steven suddenly looked up and caught me watching. He nodded respectfully. I mimed hanging myself then retreated quickly out of view in shame for having shown weakness to a servant.

“Get a fucking grip, Bucky,” I said out loud.

I ran a rough hand through my hair and climbed into bed, curling up small and tight and calculating the odds of falling asleep at two in the afternoon and sleeping until the next morning. I napped briefly and fitfully, having curious dreams that passed in fast colour. I was drifting off again when, around six, there came a knock at the door.

“Yes?” I called, wondering who on earth it could be. (Not my mother, nor Brock. The idea of my father starting a dialogue with me was laughable.)

But it wasn’t them; wasn’t any of them. It was Steven.

“Oh,” I said, sitting up in bed, the blankets pooling at my waist.

“Samuel wanted to come but he didn’t want to make things worse,” Steven said, handing me a somewhat squashed package that contained a poorly constructed yet delicious looking sandwich.

“Oh,” I said dumbly. _Idiot idiot idiot._

“He didn’t want Mrs Parker to know and tell your mother so I distracted her while he made that for you himself.”

I searched for words but none came. It was quite possibly the nicest thing someone had done for me in a long time.

“Why?” I managed to say.

“Jarvis came down and told us what you said. About Samuel.”

I relaxed slightly. “Do you know why my father chose to employ Samuel in the first place? Because-” I used my hand to make air quotes, “- _‘the Bartons have one so we need one’_.”

Steven gaped at me. “That’s terrible.”

“I know.” I took a bite out of the sandwich. Steven continued to stare at me and my shoulders slumped tiredly.

“I know that face. That pity look. I see it on my parents every day.”

“Why would they pity you?”

I glared at him. Again, Steven Rogers blushed.

“That… that can’t be the only reason.”

“Why not? They already had the heir they needed and then I arrived, damaged, nearly killing my mother in the process. If you’re truly naïve enough to believe they would look at me any different then you’re doomed here, Steven. Howling Castle is not forgiving.”

I stood up. I didn’t want this conversation to end with me sitting on the bed, pathetic and broken, while Steven stood tall and proud like the lord he should have been.

“Tell Samuel thank you for the ugly yet delightful sandwich.” I stuck out my hand. “More than likely we will never speak this way again but I appreciate you listening to the ramblings of pitiful lordling. That will be all, Steven.”

If he was surprised by my abrupt brush-off, he did not show it. He shook my hand properly, quickly, and left the room just as fast. I remained standing there for quite some time, the heat and weight of his hand imprinted onto my own. When I finally regained my senses, I wolfed down the remainder of the sandwich and climbed back into bed. Sleep would not come for a long time but when it did I had wonderful dreams of Brock being unhorsed and eaten by his own stallion.


	4. Chapter Four

**IV**

Several days passed and my mother forgot all about my transgression in the library. I spoke very little to Samuel, not out of spite that he’d inadvertently gotten me into hot water but rather to protect his position, and spoke even less to Steven. Perhaps he was avoiding me. It seemed that every room I entered he was leaving it and every time I tried to catch his eye he would be otherwise occupied.

On the following Thursday, a week after father’s nastily unpleasant dinner party, I was informed that Brock and I would be accompanying Lord and Lady Brooklyn to another nastily unpleasant dinner- this time at Stark Tower.

I tried to look enthused. I’d encountered Anthony, the Stark heir, on several occasions and he seemed to have developed a knack for getting me into trouble. 

Father spent several long minutes reminding Brock of proper etiquette- who to acknowledge first in a family, how to hold himself, how much to drink. He then spoke of the four unwed women from respected families who would be in attendance and listed their attributes, many of them physical. It made me sick the way he spoke. I risked a glance at mother but her face revealed nothing. Twenty-six years of marriage and her emotionless mask was impeccable.

“And you, James,” father said when he’d finished with Brock.

“Yes, sir.”

“You will not get in the way.”

My blood felt like ice. “No, sir.”

He studied me as if judging if I were testing him. Whatever conclusion he came to all he said was, “You will be ready on time tonight. We will depart at seven. I will send a footman to help you.”

Knowing there was no point in arguing, I kept my mouth shut and left the room at the first opportunity.

I needed to leave. I crossed the entrance hall like a storm, my footsteps echoing in the vast, empty room. The door rattled in its frame when I slammed it shut. I was being childish, I knew that. I was twenty-two years old and I still ran from my problems like a toddler. I rounded the west side of the house that led to the outbuildings where we housed the horses and the chauffeur kept the carriages and the car in working order. Mr Banner saw me but he didn’t call out and I pretended I had not seen him.

It was a cool day, colder than it had been the past week. I had not chosen a place to go but I ended up by the lake anyway because I always do.

The water was frigid when I dipped my hand in. The wind blew over the waves and within minutes I was chilled to the bone. If Uncle Happy were here he’d call me a _knob head muppet_ and tell a wildly untrue story about a distant relative who was killed by staying out in the cold too long. He’d say _Bucky, just because the rest of them are idiots doesn’t mean you should be one too_.

But Happy was dead and Bucky was just a stupid nickname for children.

I stayed at the edge of the lake for nearly four hours. I skipped stones and used a particularly sharp one to carve my name into the hard earth. My hands were filthy and my clothes were in a right state and I was sure that if my grandmother were to see me she’d dead faint.

The sun was beginning to set as I made my way back to the castle. Mr Banner wasn’t outside anymore but the car was- gleaming and ready to take us to Stark Tower. I spat on the ground, a habit mother hated, and wished some misfortune would befall us in the next half hour and we wouldn’t be able to leave.

I entered through the servants’ hall, yet another habit mother endlessly tried to break. I could hear the kitchen maids laughing with the hall boys. I didn’t see Samuel or Steven and Brock’s valet must have already gone up to help him dress.

I climbed the servants’ stairs slowly, not keen on entering my cold, dark bedroom and dauntingly trying to prepare alone for a night I didn’t even want to attend.

There was light from under my door when I approached. It flickered as a fire would but I could not imagine anyone in my family being kind enough to ask a servant to prepare my room as such.

But it was a fire. When I entered the room there wasn’t just a warm fire in the grate; my formal wear was laid out on the bed and my shoes had been shined. There was a basin of steaming water for a hot shave and by the window was a very large glass of what was unmistakable whisky.

Also near the window, was Steven.

“What are you doing in here?” I said rather rudely, a knee jerk reaction.

“I’m sorry, Mr James,” Steven said, hurrying to stand. He slipped something into his pocket that looked like a drawing book. “His lordship asked me to help you get ready and to… not leave this room until you were.”

_Fuck_.

“Fine,” I said less harshly. “Let’s get this over with.”

I tore off my shirt and sat down heavily on the chair he had dragged to the middle of the room. Steven wrapped a warm towel around my shoulders and hissed when his hand touched my flesh.

“You’re freezing.”

He looked around for a moment and then, as if there were no other possible options, dragged the chair closer to the fire with me still sitting in it.

“Oi! Watch it!” I yelled, affronted and amazed. Steven didn’t seem bothered at all and placated me by holding out the glass of whisky. I grudgingly accepted it and settled into the chair as Steven readied himself.

The first slide of Steven’s warm fingers on my skin was like a bolt of lightning. His hand was massive, spanning nearly the entire side of my neck, his thumb sweeping over my cheek. The soap was soft and warm and the razor glided smoothly in Steven’s clearly well-practiced hands. I tried to keep my eyes closed but my resolve did not last. Steven’s sharp blue eyes were rigid in concentration and I could feel his leg pressed against mine as he bent over.

It was the first time in months that anyone had touched me.

“You’re very good at this, Steven” I said, slightly breathy, just for something to say.

“Steve,” he said.

“What?”

“Steve, please. Just Steve.”

“Alright.”

He finished quietly while I stared into the fire and tried not to say anything else. He helped me dress which was admittedly infinitely easier than when I tried to do it alone. I had dismissed so many valets for every reason there was but there was something different about Steve that I didn’t know how to put into words. He didn’t stare at my arm, didn’t try to flatter me. He worked fast and precise and didn’t ask how I normally did things. He chose the cufflinks and pinned up the left side of my tuxedo jacket, something I have never let another person do. When I was fully dressed, he applied oil to his hands and ran them through my hair. Again, he did not ask how I normally styled it. He parted it deep to one side and when he was done he cleaned his hands and stood, waiting, as if we did this all the time.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Steve straightened the collar of my shirt and smiled at me.

“Mr James?”

I cleared my throat. “Yes. Yes, good. I- thank you, Steve.”

He moved everything back to where it had been. I watched his muscles move and flex beneath his clothing and if they had been any smaller I was sure they would have burst.

At the door he paused but didn’t look back when he said, “Have an enjoyable evening. You look very handsome. I’m sure Mr Barnes will hate it.”

The door closed with a snap behind him and I stared at myself in the mirror because he was right- Brock would hate it.

When I arrived at the car I realized, to my dismay, that I had been duped. My parents were not coming and in their stead was-

“Jimmy!” Alexander Pierce said. “Don’t you look dashing!”

I turned to my parents who were waiting by the castle doors and not dressed to depart and said, “You told me this was a dinner.”

“You never would have gone if we told you otherwise, darling,” mother said in a tired voice as if this small exchange was simply too taxing for her. Without a glace back at them, I ambled into the car and waited for my brother and his dreadful friend to join me.

Mr Pierce seemed to be in an excellent mood whereas Brock was in a foul one. He kept looking at me and scowling and for the first time in a long time I felt like the gentleman I should have been. Pierce, who clearly shared a healthy rivalry with Brock, was enjoying this immensely and I found that in this moment I did not dislike him.

Stark tower was not far by motor and we arrived much sooner than perhaps I would have wanted. Brock was out before the car had stopped moving which caused Pierce to erupt in loud, giddy laughter. He clapped me on my bad shoulder and we exited the car one after the other. I thought he might enter with me, perhaps signalling a turn in the awkward relationship we’ve had thus far, but he jogged ahead to meet Brock and I was left alone.

It had been clear to me since my parent’s evasion that this would be a social event that would no doubt involve dancing. My father’s remarks to Brock made far more sense now. This was an evening for three eligible men to meet eligible ladies.

_Shit_.

I entered the Stark mansion and was greeted by a butler who took my coat. The mansion was lavish and decorated to the nines for a night such as this one. Lord Stark, a widower, had not let the loss of his wife dampen his famous love for life. The walls of his home were bright and colourful, completely against the status quo. The band he had chosen for this evening, as I had just spotted, was fronted by an Asian man which was turning quite a lot of heads.

The dance space in front of me was already full to bursting with enthusiastic couples. I spied a footman carrying a tray of sparkling beverages and I had barely stepped in his direction when I was manhandled by the Stark heir himself.

Anthony Stark was a mischievous man who always had far too much energy and did not seem to have a care in regards to his only passable reputation. Fascinated by machinery and projects he could fix, it was no mystery as to why he liked me.

“James,” he said softly into my ear as if we were trading secrets, “don’t look now but there’s a beautiful woman eyeing you from the east wing.”

I followed where he was looking and huffed out a laugh. “Tony, that’s your fiancé.”

“Oh, you’re right it is!”

He beamed at me, a thousand-watt smile, and dragged me across the room to where Lady Virginia was waiting for us.

She greeted me warmly, calling me Bucky. I’ve known her longer than I’ve known Tony and she is perhaps the only person alive who still calls me that.

“Let’s get this out of the way,” I said, not unkindly after we’d finished with the repartee. “Which poor lady are you going to toss my way tonight?”

“There will be no tossing,” Virginia scolded. “They’re ladies, not cricket balls.”

She pointed her out to me. The lady in question was small and fierce with fiery red hair. Virginia called her Natasha but to me she looked of Russian lineage, more of a Natalia. I must not have been Virginia’s first stop because as soon as her and Tony left to dance, the empty space was soon filled by Lady Natasha.

“I’m not usually this bold,” Natasha said, sipping wine and gazing straight ahead. Unless I was mistaken, a small smiled played at her lips.

“And I’m not usually in this position,” I said, assuming whatever page we were on it was similar enough.

I was wrong.

“Shall we dance?”

She held out a hand, small and gloved. She was admittedly beautiful and any man would have been overjoyed at the mere thought of dancing with her but I was uninspired and lacking of limb and I was sure she’d leave me alone in an instant.

I was wrong again.

She led, her small hand pulling mine with the strength of ten. I had of course been trained in how to dance but it had been many months and more than that it had been many years since I’d cared enough to put forth any effort.

We danced with the rest of them- with Brock and a petite French woman and Pierce with a voluptuous widow. Natasha didn’t ask what was the best way to hold me nor did she expect me to take charge; she danced in a way that feigned she was following but her and I knew I was no leader.

“You don’t care,” I said. I didn’t have to elaborate.

“Should I?”

In another lifetime, another era perhaps, I could have married her. But I was not well and she was too good for me and one day, with hope, we would look back on this night and remember it as simply one very nice evening and nothing else.

After many songs had passed, I excused myself to a dark hall far enough away from the grand room but close enough that I could still hear the excellent music. I had a glass of wine in my hand and no one to gawk at me and for one amazing moment, though it would not last, everything was as it could have been.

There was a small noise to my left- a servant had entered the dark hallway and had nearly dropped his tray of crystal glasses. Only one fell. I caught it before it hit the ground and drained the salvaged drink while the man stared at me in abject horror.

“No need to worry,” I said lightly, placing the newly empty glass on his tray. “Thanks for the drink.”

He continued to stare. I took another glass.

“What’s your name?”

It didn’t seem at first that he would tell me but when he finally murmured _Scott_ I realized my mistake.

“Very nice to meet you, Scott. I may be highborn but only about ninety percent.” I waved what remained of my left arm. “Is this your first party? Yes, I thought so. Start with those who look at you. You’ll know in an instant if they want another as soon as they finish the one you’ve just given them. Give out the rest of your drinks as quickly as you can and refill your first lot. Repeat from there.”

He didn’t say anything. He looked at me as if I’d grown another head and disappeared into the grand room. I leaned back against the wall, grinning, and wondered who around here would have a cigarette.

“Always making friends with the help, I see,” said a cruel voice.

I didn’t need to look but I did anyway. Brock was leaning against the wall, a drink in his right hand and another in his left. He wasn’t drunk, an excuse he’d used before to pardon his behaviour, but he’d had enough to decide that my night needed to be ruined.

“Do you have any real friends?” Brock said with mock compassion. “Or is the black servant the only one who cares for you.”

Except he hadn’t said _black servant_ and my blood instantly began to boil. Brock grinned. I knew what he was doing. I knew this was because of my appearance when he had been expecting my usual lackluster performance. He was jealous.

And he was winning.

“I did pity you, you know,” he said. “Once. It’s not mother’s fault nor is it your fault you were born this way.”

“Stop it,” I hissed.

“If it were me,” he continued as if we were talking about inconsequential things, “I would leave. Why stay? Father can’t give anything to a cripple.”

I pushed past him. He laughed when my shoulder collided with his as if he’d won, as if he’d always known this wasn’t my place and that one thing or another would push me towards the door.

No one followed me, for who would, and the air outside was cold against my adrenaline-high skin. I was contemplating how many miles and how many minutes it would take to return to Howling Castle when I realized that that wouldn’t be necessary. The car was ready to take Brock and Pierce home but someone had sent the carriage for me.

“What is this?” I said suspiciously, watching the new footman carefully for signs that this was a trap.

“It’s as it seems, Mr James,” Steve said, prim and proper once again. “I am here to take you back to the castle whenever you are ready.”

“You followed us here? Just to take me home?”

“Yes, Mr James.”

I looked at the horse as if she would provide me with valuable insight. Unsurprisingly she didn’t and I strode forward to sit in front.

Steve followed me hesitantly, clearly surprised that I had chosen not to sit in the back. We set off silently, the only ones on the road. I didn’t know how late it was or how late it would be when we finally reached the castle.

After several kilometres of awkward silence, I used the cover of darkness to peer at Steve. He looked comfortable and relaxed, the reins held limply in his hands. He was gazing at the sky when I looked over, a small smile playing at his lips. The trip to retrieve me had most likely saved him from a dreary night of cleaning or polishing or making sure my father’s brandy glass was never empty. Whatever direction his evening would have taken, it seemed as if he preferred to accompany me.

“Why are you here?” I said into the silence, not looking at him anymore. “Who sent you to fetch me?”

“This wasn’t a ‘fetching’, Mr James,” Steve said lightly as we rounded a bend into a heavily wooded stretch of the road. “A ‘fetching’ sounds unfavourable. Her Ladyship dispatched me like a… treat for good behaviour.”

“My mother sent you to me as a _present_?”

“Your parents knew you’d never attend if you were aware that this was a dance, not a dinner. In recompense for their misleading you, you were gifted an early departure.”

He turned and smiled at me, his face barely visible in the low light. I couldn’t decide what was more unbelievable- my parent’s kind gesture or how comfortable Steve seemed to feel around me.

After several more paces, Steve suddenly slowed and then stopped the carriage. I turned to question him but his hand grabbed my shoulder and my voice died in my throat. Steve was looking into the dark forest, a crease between his eyebrows, and he whispered lowly for me not to speak.

They came from both sides of the road, three from the west, two from the east. They didn’t appear as if they were destitute. They had clothes and caps and were fairly well groomed but they had certainly been drinking and they all had the same nasty look in their eyes.

“Evening, gentlemen,” the tallest one said. He had a near-empty bottle in his hand. Beside me, Steve was tense and motionless.

I looked at all of them in turn. Steve surely would not have any money in his pockets but I did, probably more than any of them would make in a month. I could have given it to them freely.

Perhaps I should have.

“Wonderful weather we’re having, aren’t we lads?” I said easily, angling my bad shoulder behind Steve. “Been having a night out I see.”

Steve had turned to gape at me as if I’d gone mad but I didn’t look at him; I looked at the others who were slowly circling the carriage.

“We were having a night out, yea,” another said. He was smaller than the rest and looked much faster. “We ran out of money though, see, and your jacket looks mighty expensive.”

“It was quite expensive, yes,” I said, smoothing down the front with my hand. “We’re heading home from our own night out and we’re quite weary.”

“James,” Steve warned in a low voice, his hand hovering over my knee as if to hold me in place.

It was the small one who moved first, seemingly sick and tired of my indifference. He lunged for my coat pocket, his weaselly face pulled into a snarl. He barely made it half a pace when my foot collided with his mouth. He staggered back, coughing in shock as he swallowed blood and teeth.

My veins were alight as I looked at the others, my pinned jacket and one arm in full presentation. One of them shouted a slew of profanities at me and I jumped off the carriage, entirely leaving behind the highborn nobleman I should have been.

My closed fist collided with the jaw of the man closest. I hit poorly with the wrong knuckles which probably hurt me more than it had him. I swore obscenely and hit him again. He pulled a small knife from his boot which sliced through part of my head above my ear. Blood poured down the side of my face and into my mouth which I spat into his face. He lunged again, knife outstretched. I moved to the side and grabbed his arm, using my bad shoulder to push his hand until the knife fell to the ground. I kicked the knife into the forest and it was then, with the man’s arm in a vice grip, that I saw what Steve had chosen to do.

One man was already on the ground, screaming, clutching his leg that was bent at an impossible angle. Steve and the other man were on the ground, grappling for the upper hand. The man’s hand was reaching for something in the dirt that glinted in the low light and I thought it must be a knife. I twisted the man’s arm in my grip until there was a snap and kicked him in the groin. I shoved him to the dirt on top of the other man I’d rendered toothless and turned to warn Steve about the knife.

I’d forgotten about the tall man.

There was the unmistakably shatter of broken glass and then the shattered remains of the whisky bottle were slashing through the air. I moved, not fast enough. The glass sliced through my shoulder, cutting it to ribbons. I stumbled backwards and fell to one knee, my vision swimming. I clenched my fist as he advanced once more but it was useless for I knew he had won. But then Steve was there, grabbing the man by the throat and dragging him to the ground. A strangled noise came from the man’s throat and then Steve hit him and he didn’t move again.

Steve turned to me, a colossal specimen of a man blocking out even the moon itself. He had blood on his shirt and dirt in his hair but the blood didn’t look like his and he didn’t seem to care about anything else for the moment.

“Are you alright?” he asked. There was no inflection, no emotion in his voice.

“Did you get the knife?” I said.

“Did I get the-”

There was the unmistakable sound of a gunshot and Steve jerked slightly. My breath stopped as Steve and I looked at each other for the longest moment of my life. My eyes slipped down to small rip in Steve’s jacket sleeve that was moving in the breeze.

The man had missed.

For once I moved faster than Steve. Fury pulsing through me, I flew at the man, my foot sending the gun flying into the forest and breaking several fingers when I trampled his hand. I must have looked crazed because the man didn’t try to protect himself when I raised my fist. When he was asleep in the dirt, I nearly fell over myself as I ran back to Steve. He hadn’t moved but he was staring me as if he’d never met me before and I’d done something offensive to him.

“Are you alright?” I said. Unable to stop myself, I stretched out my hand to where the bullet had torn his shirt. The skin was warm and damp and when I pulled back my hand there was a small patch of Steve’s blood on my finger.

“Steve, please, are you alright?”

His eyes seemed to clear and he came back to himself. He glanced briefly at his grazed arm and then back at me, taking stock of my bleeding head and butchered shoulder which had begun to hurt more than before.

I looked at the abandoned carriage. “Steve, where’s the horse?”

Steve didn’t look away from me. “I cut her loose. I didn’t want them to hurt her.”

“Okay.”

Steve didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. I took the sleeve of his coat into my hand and gently tugged him away. We stepped over a body, I didn’t know which one, and neither of us looked back. We left the carriage where it was.

We walked for ten minutes in silence, my hand still holding onto Steve’s coat. I was beginning to recognize where we were when we came upon the horse.

“Get on,” Steve said, less like a request and more like an order. Another time I might have argued about how I gave the commands, not him, but I was too tired and too cold and too sticky from blood.

“I’ll get on,” I said childishly, “if you get on with me.”

It seemed as if, like me, he was too tired to argue and without a word he helped me onto the horse and pulled himself up to sit behind me. He wrapped his arm around my waist as if he was afraid I would fall off and I leaned back tiredly against him.

“Perhaps I should have stayed at the dance,” I murmured.

Steve didn’t say anything.

We arrived at the castle grounds not long after that. The stables and outbuildings were quiet and dark as Mr Banner was still at Stark Tower waiting for Brock and Pierce.

We left the horse in her stall and quietly approached the castle. The halls were silent as a tomb and Steve led me quickly and purposefully through the darkness towards my bedroom. He left me inside my room with a sharp _wait for me here_ and was gone before I could say anything. I remained standing, swaying slightly, and thinking vaguely about how thirsty I was.

When Steve returned he had a large glass of cold, perspiring water in his hand and a small medical chest tucked under his arm.

After letting me drink, he guided me gently onto the bed and slowly began to unbutton my shirt. Whether it was shock or delirium, I suddenly imagined this as if the night had gone very differently. I closed my eyes. Maybe Natasha and I had gotten on better than we had. Maybe she had taken me upstairs at Stark Tower to a guest bedroom, her small hand in mine and a wicked smile on her lips. She had laid me down on the bed, her warm hands opening my shirt and sliding across my chest. She ran her hand through my hair and I could feel her warm breath against my cheek. When she slid off my shirt, I reached out and touched her waist.

“James,” said Steve’s voice.

I opened my eyes and pulled back my hand that had reached out. Steve was looking at me in concern and I could do nothing but stare back.

“I can only clean it and dress it,” Steve said, his large hands prodding at my shoulder. “Your head has stopped bleeding.”

“Okay,” I said.

He did as he said, washing the wound and wrapping it tight in a clean dressing. He did it the same way he had dressed me for the evening- quick and precise.

When he was almost finished and was helping me out of my shoes, I asked him if he was alright.

“Yes, Mr James,” he said, reverting to the respectable and proper footman. “We may speak more of it tomorrow, if you wish. For now, please sleep.”

I slid into bed in my trousers and was asleep before I heard Steve leave the room. 


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for a bit of self-imposed punishment

**V**

I awoke abruptly, lunging forward in bed and nearly tearing the bandages. I sagged backward into the pillows and bit my lip to stop from crying out. When the pain had faded, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood on shaky legs.

The room looked immaculate. There were no dressing wrappers on the ground or bloody remnants of the fight I never should have engaged in. My shirt and tuxedo jacket had disappeared and the only indication that anything was amiss was the dirt on my formal trousers and the fact that I had slept in them.

Also notable was the fresh wound on my shoulder and the tender throbbing slice through my head.

The clock by the bed said that the servants would be awake now and it would not be an inappropriate time to call. I rang the bell and waited, hoping for Samuel but expecting Peter.

It was Peter. He knocked on my door a minute later after I’d donned a dressing gown and he entered when I called for him. He looked cheery and lively as he somehow always did even in the early morning. His eyes swept over me and his face fell for he must have noticed something was off. Perhaps it was my formal trousers peeking out below my dressing gown.

I told him curtly that I wished him to draw me a bath and have my bedding changed. He nodded along professionally but I could see the intense confusion in his eyes. He did not ask questions and bowed promptly when I dismissed him.

When the bath was ready I sunk into it, hissing at its heat, feeling as if every knot in my body was being sucked out of me. Beside me in a pile on the floor were the bandages I’d taken off so to save them from getting wet but they were bloody and used and I didn’t know how I would get fresh ones or who would help me with them. After my behaviour last night, I assumed Steve would never want to speak to me again.

I stayed in the bath long after it had gone cold and long enough that Peter had finished with the bedroom. When I exited the bath, shivering and full of trepidation from having obsessed over every detail of what had happened, I wondered if Steve would be dismissed. He had done everything for me because I had asked him but I had been hurt and he had injured several townsfolk and if my father heard of this story he would surely blame the servant.

I slipped on the pants and trousers I had brought with me into the bathroom and entered my bedroom, stumbling in alarm into the dresser when I realized I was not alone.

“Steve,” I said.

“Mr James,” he said, standing perfectly straight and unsmiling. “Please excuse my sudden intrusion.”

“It’s alright,” I said though I wasn’t sure if it was.

“Peter told me you’d requested a bath,” Steve continued, blushing slightly. “I thought- well, I thought after you might need-”

He raised the medicine chest I once again hadn’t noticed he had. I nodded rather than speak and came around the bed to sit down.

He cleaned the wound again which looked free of infection. His face was pinched in uneasiness and he seemed to be in severe distress.

“Steve-” I began.

He interrupted me. “If you wish to have me dismissed I would understand.”

“I will not,” I said assuredly, despite having just had the same discussion in my own head. “It was my fault. I provoked them. I wanted a fight.”

“You got hurt, Mr James. I should have stopped them. I believe I… behaved improperly. I crossed personal boundaries with you and I deeply regret those actions.”

It was the smallest bit amusing to me to hear him say that as his hands were touching my naked flesh. He had crossed more personal boundaries in the last ten hours than anyone had in twenty-two years.

“I will not dismiss you,” I said as strongly as I could. “We will not speak of this night again and it will be as if it never happened.”

At that time, I had of course forgotten a very important detail- the missing carriage. It would be a long time before I heard the truth that Steve had left the castle after putting me to sleep to retrieve it alone.

Steve finished with the wound and stood back. I regarded him closely. He had bags under his eyes and a waxy look to his skin. He must have borrowed another coat because it looked far too small and there was no hole in the arm.

“I must apologize once more,” he said with sudden emotion in his voice.

“What is it?”

He turned away from me. “I was so preoccupied with not losing my position here that last night it never occurred to me to take you to the town doctor. Mr James, I’m afraid the wounds will scar.”

I laughed in his face. “Steve, I am missing an arm. Scars are the least of my problems.”

I beamed at him. He didn’t smile back.

“That will be all Steve,” I said finally. He bowed, and left, leaving behind a pristine room and the sharp smell of cleaning solution.

I crossed the room and looked at myself in the mirror. My shirt would cover the bandages so that was of no concern. My face bore the ghost of bruises but I didn’t believe anyone would look close enough to tell. My hair hid the cut on my head well enough which meant that the only loose end was Peter. I didn’t expect him to say anything but if he did, I was a nobleman and he was a hall boy and his word meant nothing against mine.

I finished dressing quickly for breakfast and was the first one to sit at the table. Jarvis served me tea and toast and I waited for some passing look on his face about me but I was simply being paranoid.

Mother and father arrived shortly after myself and seemed surprised to see me. It was as if they had expected me to pout all day because of their deception which I have done before.

“You’re up early,” my mother said, sitting down next to me. “Did you enjoy yourself last night?”

“Sure,” I said honestly. “Thank you for sending the carriage.”

“Your mother insisted on it,” my father said gruffly for no other reason than to remind me of how little he cares for me.

“Where’s Brock?” I asked, drinking my tea as quickly as I could so I could leave.

“Still asleep, I expect,” my father said. “He arrived home late. I hope that means good news.”

Good news to father meant that Brock had found a suitable woman to marry for the only thing more embarrassing than having a disabled son was having an unmarried heir at twenty-five.

“I did see him with a lady,” I supplied for some reason. “A french lady. She was pretty.”

For the first time in months, my father paid rapt attention to me. He asked questions about the noblewoman- who her parents were and how long they had danced for. I didn’t know her name or her parentage so I relayed only what I had seen. Father looked pleased and when he clasped the back of my neck, I felt like I was truly his son.

Late in the evening, my mother’s parents arrived from London and were due to stay through the week-end which pleased Brock greatly and did nothing for me except nearly getting my jaw locked in place from clenching it so hard.

Lord and Lady Hill arrived in the afternoon in an outlandishly large car with so much luggage I almost refused to believe it with my own eyes. They brought trunks of presents for the castle and for Brock and they hardly looked at me in the waiting party.

“James, you look well,” my grandfather said offhandedly, handing Samuel his hat and coat after nearly having given them to me.

“Yes, thank you, and you look old,” I said to myself after he’d already moved on.

Samuel let out an unattractive snort which he smoothly disguised as a cough. I winked at him and followed the procession to the living room where Jarvis would serve tea, all eyes would be on Brock, and I might as well have been a wall decoration.

The conversation lasted all afternoon to my great dismay. Brock positively revelled in the attention and told every story with more emphasis and hyperbole than ever before. It was almost unbearable to hear and yet somehow everyone seemed to swallow his stories hungrily.

When we were due to dress for dinner, Samuel, who had been forced to remain in the background due to my grandfather being a terrible racist, slipped a cigarette into my coat pocket. I ran to my rooms at top speed and dressed equally as quickly. I used the servants’ staircase so as to not be seen, scaring the living daylights out of Darcy on my way, and arrived at the servants’ courtyard in record time.

“That was quick,” Samuel said, offering me a match. I lit the cigarette from my pocket and leaned back heavily against the brickwork.

“That was as bad as I thought it was, yes?”

“Worse. You should have heard the things the _Lord_ would whisper to me when he thought no one would hear.”

“ _Fuck_. I’m sorry, Samuel.”

He smirked lightly. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“I don’t kiss anyone with this mouth,” I grumbled.

At that moment, Steve emerged from the door and blushed substantially, seemingly embarrassed at having overheard. I suddenly felt awkward, though I couldn’t understand why, and I picked myself off the wall to stand at full height.

“Come to smoke with us?” I said as casually as I could manage.

“Oh, Stevie doesn’t smoke,” Samuel answered teasingly, reaching up to slam his hand on Steve’s broad shoulder. “Steve here has the constitution of a small bird.”

I laughed and Steve’s deep blue eyes glared at me. “You?” I said. “Are we sure we’re talking about the same Steve?”

Without thinking, I placed the cigarette between my lips and reached out, wrapping my hand as far around Steve’s bicep as I could. He flexed in surprise and I laughed again.

“Yes. Absolutely I can see it. Stevie, the fragile wren.”

Samuel snorted. “Will you rattle them off, Steve, or shall I?” He didn’t seem to expect an answer because he began to tell me anyway. “Asthma, chronic colds, sinusitis, high blood pressure, heart palpitations… am I missing any?”

“Scarlet and rheumatic fever and undernourishment,” Steve muttered.

“You?” I said in disbelief. “ _Undernourished_?”

I openly stared at him. He must have been at least six foot, three inches. He was broad in the shoulders and through the chest, narrowing in the waist. His legs were long and strong and I bet he had nearly thirty pounds of pure muscle on me. I looked up. He was staring at me, waiting, his mouth open slightly.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you, Steve,” I said, sucking on the cigarette far too hard. Samuel, who seemed to have been finding the conversation amusing before, was now staring at me curiously.

“It was a long time ago,” Steve said, crossing his arms and leaning against the opposite wall that I had been against. “I was a sickly child in a poor family. When my father died, I took my first job at a farm where I did hard labour. By the time I became a hall boy at a respectable house, I had grown out of most of my old ailments.”

“And grown bigger,” I said, unable to help myself.

“Yes, well…” He shifted his weight from foot to foot as if receiving compliments was difficult for him. Or perhaps it was receiving compliments from me.

Samuel, who I had forgotten was still there and who had finished his own cigarette, stole mine from my mouth and said, “You’d better go, Buck. They’ll be sending out a search party any moment.”

“If I were Brock maybe...”

I smiled dejectedly at them both. I ducked into the entrance but held back to wait for Mrs Parker so that she wouldn’t see me. Out of sight, I could still hear their voices.

“I can’t seem to figure him out,” Steve said. He sounded almost somber.

“Don’t try to,” Sam said. “I stopped long ago. He’s an unhappy nobleman whose spirit died a long time ago. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

I didn’t want to listen anymore. I snuck through the hallway to the staircase, my face red and my thoughts flustered. I didn’t have a chance to consider how what I’d overheard made me feel because the others were about to go in and I was able to slip in seamlessly. At dinner, I sat opposite Brock and next to my grandmother who had very clearly already begun to drink. My mother kept shooting me nasty looks and I worried she could smell the cigarettes on me, a practice she hated in all people.

Dinner was surprisingly agreeable. It seemed the topic of Brock had been exhausted and his name did not come up once which was very clearly upsetting to him. My father and grandfather spoke at length about the estate and of money while my mother tried to repeatedly insert herself into the conversation. Around the table, Steve and Samuel served food and drink and it took everything in me not to meet their gaze. When the fish course was being removed, my grandmother, who was halfway pissed by now, looked at Steve as if she hadn’t seen him before and said, “That there is the biggest man I’ve ever seen!”

She had not been loud enough for the others to hear and certainly not loud enough for Steve to hear and I had to bite back my amusement.

“Yes, he is very large,” I said, tracking Steve’s movements and remembering how big his arm felt in my hand.

“I do so wish, for one night, that I could have had a man like that,” my grandmother continued.

I poorly concealed my laughter into my napkin. The others still paid me no attention and my grandmother didn’t much notice either for Steve had turned around and her eyes had found a new place to look.

At the end of the meal, the others retired to the drawing room for an after-dinner drink while I helped my grandmother stand. Instead of joining the others, we went to the library where she sat down heavily on one of the couches by the fire.

I sat down opposite her, surprised that she had not asked me to leave yet. She stared out the window at the grounds, or where the grounds would have been if it hadn’t been so dark, and then back at me. She leaned forward and did something she has never done before in all my life. She took my hand in hers, her soft glove sliding over my cold skin. Her other hand caressed my cheek and she looked at me like I was a carefree little boy.

“So handsome,” she said drunkenly, her thumb sliding up and down my face. “You took after my daughter. Such delicate features.”

I didn’t know how to respond so I remained quiet. Her gaze slid slowly down to my arm and my body tensed like a coil.

“Such a shame. Such a handsome boy, ruined by such an unlucky mark of God’s will.”

Her hand slid from my cheek to the soft end of my arm where an elbow should have been. I took my hand from her.

“You would have made us very proud, I think.”

She smiled as if she’d just given me a compliment. My blood turned to ice and her touch made me sick. 

“Can I not still make you proud?”

I already knew the answer. She squeezed my arm gently and leaned back against the cushions. She did not answer.

Behind me, the door to the library opened and light spilled over the floor. I turned slowly.

“The others have asked me to bring you both to the drawing room, Mr James,” Steve said. Our friendly encounter in the servants’ courtyard felt like a lifetime ago.

“Of course.”

I helped my grandmother to her feet and Steve took her other hand. When we’d gotten her out of the library, I let go and turned the other way. I was sure Steve was watching me but he had his hands full and he could not follow me.

I left through the main entrance to the cold outdoors. The wind was fierce and it tore at my clothes as I crossed the vast grounds of the estate.

I didn’t go to the lake. I walked blindly, blinking through traitorous tears that proved I wasn’t as immune to their cruel words as I tried to convince myself I was.

At the edge of the property, there was an English oak that Brock used to climb and I used to pretend to climb. I made for it, taking off my dinner jacket and childishly throwing it on the ground. My vest and bowtie followed until I was shivering in my dress shirt.

I swore loudly, unheard and unseen. I curled my hand into a fist and punched the tree trunk. I hit it again and again until the tree was red with my blood and my knuckles were nothing but torn flesh and deep slices.

I sunk to the ground, my back to the tree, and cried. I cried because I was a coward, because I was a spoiled lordling who could not live up to who I had been promised to become.

The wind changed suddenly and the temperature dropped and still I did not move. I deserved this. I deserved this cold, I deserved this pain. With my teeth, I tore off pieces of my own flesh from my split knuckles, the sting of broken skin simply punishment for all my wrongs.

And then as quickly as this insanity had come over me, it was gone. I buried my face in my hand trying to stem the flow of tears but it was no good. I wanted someone to find me, someone who would care for me. Not Samuel, no, not this time.

I wanted Steve. I wanted him to find me, curled up on the cold earth like a craven. I wanted him to tell me I was _good_ , tell me to stop doing this to myself. He would pick me up as easy as if I weighed nothing and he would hold me in his arms for as long as I needed. I would tuck my face into his neck and inhale his scent and he would not let me go.

I picked myself up off the ground and bundled my discarded clothes into a ball, tucking it under my arm. I stormed back to the castle, uncaring if someone saw me in this state though I should have.

No one was at the door and the entrance hall was empty when I entered. I was halfway up the main staircase when I looked down. Steve was staring up at me, unmoving, his mouth in a hard line and a crease between his eyebrows. I looked away, embarrassed that I’d ever wanted him to come for me.

In my room, I tried to calm down. I folded my clothes neatly and washed my face. I donned my night clothes and slid into bed though I wasn’t tired. I couldn’t hear the others downstairs and I tried not to think about whether they were enjoying my absence or not.

Sometime later there was a small knock on my door. I didn’t answer them and they must have moved on because they did not knock again.

It took a long time for sleep to come. When it did, my dreams were black.


	6. Chapter Six

**VI**

The following morning the men went shooting while the ladies took breakfast in the gardens. As I am apparently neither a man nor a lady, I wasn’t invited to either.

I took breakfast alone in the dining room, reading the paper but not absorbing a single word. War was alluded to on every page but I dismissed it as hearsay.

I spent the rest of the day avoiding the others with moderate success. My hand was a stiff, throbbing mess and I certainly did not want anyone probing into how I received such a gruesome injury. I knew that if I could last until after church in the morning I could wear a glove and by that evening my grandparents would have gone.

I feigned a headache that evening to miss dinner. No one had seen me all day and, when no one came to check on me, it seemed that they were at peace with my absence.

At half eight, Peter brought me my meal to my room and inquired after how I was feeling. I answered gloomily and dismissed him quickly for it is one thing to know your family cares not for you and another to be presented with assurance that perhaps the servants have only ever been the ones to love me.

In the morning as I dressed in my Sunday’s best, I found that my lone glove had gone missing. I cursed my own forgetfulness and descended to breakfast already in a foul mood. At the table, I made sure to sit at an angle with no one to my right so that they wouldn’t see and wouldn’t ask.

The walk to the village was cool, the sun hiding deep in the clouds. My grandparents had departed in their car and had taken my parents with them. Brock and I walked together for a while until he sped up to walk alone, leaving me in his wake. Some kilometers back, I knew the servants would be following us.

I sat behind my parents for the service. Brock sat next to me and paid no attention to anything, instead fiddling distractedly with a matchbook. Near the end of the sermon my eyes began to wander. I could pick Steve easily out in the crowd, not because I was so familiar with his face but because his head stuck out so high above everyone else’s. He appeared to be paying intense attention to the service which made me wonder if Steve was a very religious man.

When the service had finished, I ducked outside as quickly as I could to breathe fresh air and to avoid being ensnared into any unpleasant conversations with equally unpleasant neighbours.

I leant against the cold stone of the church in a small patch of shade. I watched a group of poor children playing in the street. There was a notice board beside the post office that announced the fair was coming to the village which did not interest me but I knew a fair amount of the staff would be keen on it.

I must have been a million miles away because I did not hear him approach. There was a light pressure at my elbow that didn’t startle me half as much as when his fingers brushed my hand.

I looked up at him. He was looking down, his fingers trailing over the rough, scabbed remains of my knuckles. When he finally met my gaze, he had the familiar crease between his eyebrows, the one it seems he always sports when it concerns me.

We did not speak. He held my arm in both hands and stared at me in silence though his expression was so loud it was as if he was yelling at me-

_What did you do?_

I did not wish to tell him, did not have any desire to admit my failures. I did not owe him anything.

I slipped my hand from his and moved past him to join my family.

The atmosphere at the castle returned to order when my grandparents had left. Brock worked closely with Father on matters of the estate and Mother spent most of her time outside on the grounds, savouring the new spring weather. I spent most of my time in the library reading novels set in places far away from here.

The following Thursday found us all in the drawing room in the early afternoon for it appeared as if heaven itself had opened. It had not stopped raining since the previous evening and the grounds were a muddy marshland.

Brock, whose attention could never be held by books, was throwing wads of paper at me when he knew our parents were not looking.

“Stop that,” I said, turning a page in my own book so roughly it tore. Brock grinned wickedly.

Samuel came around then to replenish our teas and when he had gone Brock’s eyes followed him slyly.

“What do you think it would be like? To be with someone like him, I mean.”

“A man?” I baited.

“No! Don’t be disgusting. I mean someone who’s black.”

Just like he had at Stark Tower, his true words had been much more hateful.

“I won’t engage with you if you insist on speaking about him in that manner,” I snapped. I pointedly and roughly turned a page in my book even though I hadn’t finished the last.

Brock waved a hand haphazardly. “Fine, fine. What do you think, dear brother, it would be like to bed one of our darker-skinned neighbours?”

“I don’t know, Brock.”

“Do you think they’d be better?”

“ _Brock_.”

He laughed lowly and went back to throwing paper at me. When he stopped suddenly I should have known better not to look over but I did which was my great undoing.

“You have… haven’t you?”

I knew what he was implying, knew what he wanted me to say. There was no way I would win this discussion so I saved my breath.

Brock sounded both gleeful and mystified. “ _No_. Oh, James, please tell me you’re joking. Surely not.”

I glared at him. He looked like he’d been given a large present.

“ _Never_?”

“Brock, stop.”

“No lass has ever- how can I phrase this for your delicate ears… no maiden has ever put her mouth on your-”

“Brock!”

My parents looked over sharply and I sunk down deeper into the couch, the flame in my cheeks rising rapidly. Brock was giggling like a schoolboy.

“But you have kissed a lady before?”

“Yes!”

“Who?”

I fumed but knew he would never let it go. “Fine. _Fine_. There was a housemaid at Carter Hall when I was fourteen. Lady Hope kissed me on a dare at her summer home. Lady Jane kissed me at her father’s funeral. And… and Hela Odinson stuck her tongue in my mouth in the gardens two years ago.”

Brock seemed to find the last particularly first-rate. “She’s nearly forty years old! You dog!”

I pretended to glower but in truth it felt like an accomplishment to please Brock. After several long moments where he appeared to consider my snogging history he said, “Only kissing though, brother? Nothing else?”

“No,” I said with finality. “Nothing else.”

He grinned and looked out the window. I could practically see the wheels in his brain turning. “The rain will stop tonight. Tomorrow I’m taking you to the Maximoff farm.”

“Why,” I said flatly.

“Because, brother,” Brock said, leaning over to mess up my hair, “you’re missing an arm not a cock.”

The next morning dawned bright and clear. The sun was so warm the grounds had dried overnight and it was quite obviously the most beautiful day we’d had so far this year.

I dressed quickly, nervous and excited. I wasn’t sure what Brock had planned or if he would go through with it but I would be remiss if I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

Father looked up from his breakfast when I entered the dining room. Before I’d even sat down he said, “I heard you wish to join Brock on his rounds this morning.”

I sat timidly, shooting a look at Brock. He looked calm and reserved, the perfect mask.

“Yes, Father,” I said. “I thought it would be… illuminating.”

“Wonderful,” Father said, surprising Brock enough that his face slipped for just a moment. “I will go to the village then today, Brock. If you don’t need me.”

“Yes, Father,” Brock said. He winked at me over the table.

Father had barely left for the village when Brock was dragging me out the door for the short walk to the farm. They had pigs and crops and paid wages to my father for farming on his land. I had never met Mr Maximoff or his family but Father liked them well enough and they always paid on time.

Brock was in an excellent mood as we walked down the dirt road that lined our estate. He was whistling jovially and had taken off his jacket to sling it over his shoulder.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched. I wasn’t stupid. I knew Brock’s mood wouldn’t last and that tomorrow or the next day he would be back to being the pompous prat who hated me but for now I could pretend that we were true brothers who cared for each other.

“Nearly there, James.”

We rounded a thick set of trees and a small cluster of buildings came into view. The farm was quaint and well used. Instead of taking the long way, Brock climbed over the fence that circled the property with ease and it was a testament to his good mood that he had the decency to look awkward when he realized why I’d stopped.

“Fuck, sorry. We’ll take the long way.”

I ignored him and scrambled over the fence one-handed with a lot less ease and balance. Brock smiled sheepishly and we didn’t mention it again.

There was a man and a young woman waiting for us outside the small cottage home between the barn and what looked like a feed storage. The man greeted us warmly like friends but still remaining true to status by calling us our proper names. The girl, who couldn’t be much younger than me, curtsied. Her father didn’t notice but I noticed the way she looked at Brock.

“My dear brother was wondering if you would be so kind as to show him around the farm,” Brock said kindly to Mr Maximoff, using a voice I’d never heard before. His warm arm was around my shoulders and I could feel the mirth radiating off him in waves.

The man readily agreed. He trotted me around his land proudly, showing it off like it was Buckingham Palace and not a humble pig farm. I felt ashamed of myself for even having such arrogant thoughts but my mind was too preoccupied as to where Brock and the girl had gone off to.

We finished near the river that also marked the edge of my own home’s land. There was a boy, about the same age at the girl, fishing in a small boat. He raised a hand. I waved back.

When Brock and the girl returned, Brock said he wished to discuss financial matters with Mr Maximoff. I thought he was being glaringly obvious but perhaps that was simply my own paranoia for Mr Maximoff happily walked off with his proprietor, leaving his very pretty daughter alone with a very eligible man.

I shifted awkwardly, feeling her gaze on me. I looked over my shoulder at the boy in the boat who seemed to have given up fishing and had taken off his shirt to sunbathe.

“Mr Barnes never spoke of you,” the girl said, pulling my attention back to whatever was about to transpire between us.

“That does not surprise me,” I said. My empty arm was in full view but she did not look.

“I’m Wanda,” she said. “Let me show you the boathouse.”

She held out her left arm which I took in my right. The boathouse was a nondescript wooden building, the furthest from the main cottage. Inside was warm from the sun though not uncomfortably so. Wanda shut the door behind us and I wondered what Brock must have said to her.

“I don’t know… what Brock-” I tried then changed track. “If there’s anything you don’t want to do…”

She placed both hands on my face. Her eyes were a deep green and she was very beautiful.

At the first press of her lips I felt like an entire bucket of water had been upended on me. Every nerve in my body was rendered electric. I had been kissed before but it was the mere thought of what might follow that sent my body into high gear.

“We don’t have long,” Wanda said.

“Okay.” I couldn’t feel my legs. Wanda dropped to her knees. “Oh, fuck.”

She undid my trousers swiftly and precisely like we were conducting a business meeting and she wasn’t about to suck my cock. She took me in her hand and stroked me, looking into my eyes the whole time. My breathing was ragged or maybe it had stopped completely and my mind was a blank slate.

She took me then in her warm mouth, her hand grasping what she couldn’t fit. Her hand twisted in time with her mouth and I knew I couldn’t last like this.

She didn’t use her teeth. Her mouth was a perfect _O_ around me and I could feel her tongue licking wet ribbons down the side of my cock. At some point she lifted her tongue to the roof of her mouth and took me below and I let out a noise that was mostly inhuman.

It didn’t take long after that. My hand, which had somehow found its way to her shoulder, squeezed it tightly. Her mouth left me but her fist quickened and within seconds I was finishing into her hand.

As I stood, boneless, with my cock hanging out of my trousers, Wanda got to her feet and wiped her hands on a length of cloth.

“We should probably return. They’ll be looking for you soon.”

I said a string of nonsense words and tucked myself away. As my blood pressure slowly began to return to baseline and my embarrassment skyrocketed, Wanda was the epitome of calm.

“Brock once helped me out of a tight spot,” she said by ways of explanation. “This was the least I could do for him.”

“I don’t think fulfilling favours typically involves sucking off someone’s brother,” I said weakly, following Wanda out of the boathouse and nearly tripping on the uneven ground. Wanda took my arm again and we walked back to where we had left Brock and Mr Maximoff.

We were alone for several extraordinarily long minutes. Wanda pointed out different aspects of the farm and named the birds that were singing while I prayed to God to bring down the redness in my cheeks.

I thought for sure that the moment Mr Maximoff would emerge he would know instantly what had happened and he would feed me to his pigs but I did not see him again. Brock came out of the cottage, beaming from ear to ear, and gave Wanda a very affectionate hug who returned it earnestly.

We left the farm, neither Brock nor I saying a word. I felt like a loaded gun ready to fire and Brock looked like he was full to bursting.

It was only when we were out of sight and certainly out of earshot did he let out a wild howl and grab my face in both his hands. He didn’t say anything. He stared into my eyes, a ridiculous look on his face and laughed uproariously.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Do _you_?”

He was grinning wider than I’d ever seen. “Fair enough, Bucky.”

He ran ahead, kicking stones into the forest. He didn’t see, didn’t look back. There was a warm buzz inside me that began in the soles of my feet and traveled until my whole body was humming.

_He called me Bucky._

We walked back to the castle, Brock throwing random facts about the farm over his shoulder in the off-chance father asked.

When we had returned, Jarvis informed us that Mother had left to have dinner in the village with friends and that Father would join them. Brock whooped excitedly and left for the carriage house, no doubt to depart for Alexander’s. He sent me one last elated look and was gone and although I did not know it then, he would never look at me that way again.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have updated the tags! This will have a happy ending!!

**VII**

On Wednesday I received two letters. The first was from Anthony Stark, a long rambling account of what had transpired at his party after I’d left and an open invitation to his London residence where he’d just departed to.

The second letter was from Natasha Romanoff.

“I don’t think it appropriate for a lady to write to a gentleman first,” was Father’s first reaction, no doubt born from disbelief that a lady would defy social norms for someone like me. In contrast, Mother appeared half ready to cry. She waited like a famished lion ready to pounce as I read the letter and snatched it out of my hand as soon as I had finished.

“Lady Natasha has invited me to London,” I said aloud.

Mother read the letter for herself as if she didn’t believe me, her hand over her breast. Father stared at the wall like the information was going through one ear and out the other without sticking.

“You will accept at once,” Mother said.

Though I had no intention to refuse Lady Natasha, if I had there would have been no use. “Yes, Mother.”

“You will go to the tailor tomorrow. I will arrange it. I don’t know what you did to your tuxedo jacket but it is utterly ruined.”

She left the room, plans _B_ through _Z_ no doubt forming in her head.

“You will bring a valet,” Father said, pointing a stern finger at me, “and you will not complain about it.”

“Can I bring Samuel?” I asked hopefully.

Father snorted like I’d said a very humorous joke. “Don’t be daft, James. You will take Steven.”

I left the dining room then, breakfast forgotten, the letter clutched tight in my fist. Head in the clouds I almost missed Pierce lounging languidly in the Great Hall. He was dressed for riding but he had a sour expression on his face. I stopped.

“Alexander? What are you doing here?”

He looked over, his eyes wide with surprise. I hadn’t been attempting to be quiet but I’d clearly caught him off guard.

“Jimmy!” He smiled broadly at me, an unusual occurrence. “I didn’t hear you. I was a million miles away.”

“Are you waiting for Brock?”

He huffed out an annoyed breath. “We were scheduled to go riding but he’s given up on me at the last minute.”

He seemed to return to woolgathering again and then, with the same wicked glint in his eyes that always used to get me into trouble when we were children, said, “I’ll wait for you to get changed.”

“What?”

“You’ll come out with me instead.” He clapped his hands at me as if summoning a dog. “Be quick now!”

In a move that probably surprised us both, I did.

Within ten minutes we were riding out over the fields, me atop Brock’s prize stallion who had already been saddled and readied. It did not have my custom saddle nor the reins that had been adjusted for a one-armed man but it did the job well enough.

I was sure Alexander had some sort of game up his sleeve but the further we rode the more I began to doubt my own misgivings.

At the top of Hollows Ridge Alexander stopped and pulled a flask from his pocket. He drank only a small amount. An incredibly awful look crossed his face. When he had finished and had tossed me the flask, he rode off laughing in a manner I’ve never heard anyone do before.

I took a much bigger sip than Alexander had and nearly immediately vomited.

“Pierce this tastes like poison!”

I rode hard after him, the liquor (whatever it was) going straight to my head. When we finally stopped for a break, I all but fell off the horse.

“What in the fucking hell was that?” I could still taste it in my mouth.

Pierce took back the flask and, unbelievably, drank more. “It tastes better with sugar. Or, well, no it doesn’t.”

From another pocket in his jacket he pulled out a second flask and I thought that if he pulled out any more I would never make it out of this ride alive. The gin still tasted horrible but at least I could tell what it was.

Pierce and I stood side by side as we looked out over the hillside. There were no farms, no villages. For as far as we could see there were only trees and hills and mountains in the far distance.

“Do you remember-” Pierce began playfully, “-that time Brock and I sent you on that cock and bull quest and you were lost for three days?”

“Sure I do,” I said easily. “I got so hungry I had to eat my own arm.”

Pierce folded in two, roaring with laughter. I sat down heavily on the grass and drank more. I had known Pierce for all my life but I’d never seen him like this.

He sat down next to me and stretched, tilting his face up to the sun. I thought we wouldn’t speak again. We’d drink and ride back. He’d thank me for indulging him today and then we’d go back to the barely passable friendship we normally kept in which him and my brother torment me like we were still infants.

“I’m sorry you know.”

I picked at the grass near my knee. “What for? For making me drink that vile shite? Or for making my life hell for twenty-two years.”

He didn’t answer straight away; in fact I didn’t believe he would answer at all. Us lordlings aren’t accustomed to owning up to our mistakes.

“It should have been you,” Pierce said, no longer jovial. “You should have been the heir.”

Pierce took another swig of his terrible drink and gave it to me. I would not drink it again.

“Brock just wants to chase girls and be free from responsibility. You should inherit the estate. You should be the next Earl.”

I drank. “Why are you saying these things?”

His usual cheeriness was back and I knew I wouldn’t get anything more out of him.

“No reason. I suppose we’ll all know soon enough.”

We finished the gin between us and raced to the village. He won but for the first time didn’t gloat. We said goodbye in the town square and he left for home while I headed to the post office.

I bought enough paper for two letters and borrowed a pen from the shop keeper. Next door at the public house I ordered a beer and found a discrete corner in the bar where I wouldn’t be bothered and where no one would see me sweaty and grimy and still wearing my riding clothes.

My response to Natasha was polite and short but I tried harder with Anthony’s. I was nearly finished when a familiar voice drew my gaze to the bar.

He looked warm and out of place, his hat tucked under his arm. He gazed around the pub like he’d never been into one and when his eyes fell on me it was like he’d been caught doing something sinful.

I raised my hand in greeting. Steve walked to me slowly like a dog who’d just been scolded.

“It’s my afternoon off,” he said when he’d reached me, like there was a chance I could think a man like Steve would skive off work.

“I know you get Wednesday afternoons off,” I lied, attempting to make him feel better. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

The bartender called for Steve’s attention and placed Steve’s water on the bar. Before the man could attend to other patrons I said, “Have a drink with me.” Both Steve and the barman hesitated. “I’m paying,” I added. Steve ordered a beer.

While he waited, I hastily finished my letter to Anthony and tucked both finished letters into my riding hat. When Steve sat down opposite me with his beer and water he looked more nervous than I’ve ever seen him.

“No need to be on edge, Steve,” I said, smiling. All the alcohol I had drunk with Pierce had made me feel loose and warm.

Steve took a marginally shaky sip of his water. “You’re right. Lords buy me beers every day.”

I snorted unattractively and Steve’s sharp blue eyes flicked to me before darting away again.

“Are you having a nice afternoon off?”

It was the first time I’d seen him when he wasn’t working. His clothes were well kept but cheaply made and, just like everything else he owned, nearly too small for him.

“I am, yes, thank you. I had a letter to post to my mother in London and a chap in town asked for my help with the fair.”

“Helping to set up?”

“Yes, and-” Steve blushed.

I leaned forward. “Tell me.”

“I will be working at a booth. That is, if Mr Coulson lets me.”

“It’s all for charity, I’m sure he will. What will your attraction be?”

My imagination jumped straight to feats of strength, perhaps arm wrestling the men or a tug of war with a horse.

“I’ll be doing portraits,” he said, his cheeks reddening modestly. He gulped a large amount of beer. “I’m not very good.”

“I doubt that very much.”

He looked intently at the table, embarrassment on his face plain as day. I wondered if he always got this way when he talked about his drawing or perhaps it was that he was talking to a lord.

Or, possibly, it was that that lord was me.

“Were you riding today?” Steve asked. His eyes couldn’t meet mine but they seemed to have no trouble taking in my vibrantly red jacket and high collar.

“I was, yes. In an odd turn of events, I rode out with Mr Pierce.”

Steve did not try to hide the surprise on his face. “I thought you hated him.”

“In a way, yes, I do hate him. Do you have any siblings?” Steve shook his head. “No, I thought not. There is a very strict difference between hatred for siblings and hatred for all others. I grew up with Alexander for him and Brock have been joined at the hip since birth. In a way they are both my brothers and although they have both made me deeply unhappy, it is not true hate I feel for them.”

It was clear that Steve did not understand but he did not have siblings and thus never truly could. I finished my beer and called for two more.

“You were sending a letter to your mother,” I prodded. I wanted us to have a real conversation. “Is she well?”

Steve ran a finger through the perspiration on his water glass. “No, but she hasn’t been well in many years. She has lived with her sister ever since my father died.”

I wanted to ask why Steve hadn’t remained with his mother but I thought it improper to ask.

“You want to know why I didn’t stay,” he said, reading my mind.

The beers arrived. It was now my turn not to look at him. “You are under no obligation to tell me if you don’t wish to.”

“It was a long time ago. My father was not a nice man. He wanted a son but got a weak, sickly boy instead. He died when I was twelve and left my mother and I with nothing. When I started as a hall boy, not much older than Peter is now, I sent money to my mother instead of going myself. I haven’t seen her in almost six years.”

“Would you like to see her?”

“I’m not sure.” He let out a soft laugh. “I used to want to change my surname. Get rid of Rogers for good. I thought about going by my mother’s maiden name but I didn’t think Steven Shufflebottom sounded much better.”

We laughed for a long time after that. It was easy to talk to Steve. He spoke a lot with his hands and became excited by trivial things. His mood was contagious and I felt light and carefree and I didn’t think it had anything to do with the drink.

When I paid, we left together, side by side like equals. I returned the pen to the post office and purchased the fare to send the letters. When I returned outside, Steve had untethered my horse and was waiting with the reins.

“I’ve just seen my friend from the fair,” Steve said as he handed me the reins. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“I will wait for you.”

Steve looked surprised but not displeased. He jogged over to the far side of the street where a man with a rather large moustache and a bowler hat was putting up a string of flags. I watched them interact. They appeared to be good friends and I wondered if Steve knew him from before. When they had finished their conversation and Steve was crossing the street, the man stared queerly at me. His face was that of confusion and mistrust and I wondered what on earth I could have done to annoy this man I’d never met.

“Ready to leave?”

Steve was back. He looked half ready to help me onto the horse if I asked but told him I would walk with him.

We walked in silence out of the village. It wasn’t uncomfortable but I couldn’t shake the strange way that man had looked at me. When I couldn’t stand the quiet any longer I took a very tactless way to share the news with Steve.

“There was a reason I was asking you about your mother.”

“Oh?” He had been scratching the horse behind the ears but he stopped to give me his full attention.

“I am to go to London soon. Mr Stark has given me an open invitation and… and Lady Natasha Romanoff has invited me to her family’s estate. You are to come with me as my valet.”

Steve stumbled over his feet, his face the picture of shock.

“Your valet?”

“I have dismissed so many of them but father was pleased with how you handled me for the evening at Stark Tower.”

“And you? Were you pleased?”

The way his voice sounded nearly threw me completely off guard. His face was so open it was like he had never once been paid a compliment.

“Y-yes, I was very happy with your work.”

“And you’d want me to come to London with you? As your personal valet?”

It was father who’d suggested it but if I couldn’t have Samuel, I wanted Steve.

“Yes, Steve, I want you to come with me. Father would never allow it but if you wanted some time to visit your mother I would let you go.”

Steve looked down at his feet, a smile threatening to take over his whole face.

“Yes, I would like that. Thank you, Mr James. You don’t have to but it’s very kind.”

We were quiet again. When the castle came into view Steve said, “So… Lady Romanoff?”

He was laughing at me. I tucked the reins under my bad arm and hit him. “Shut up!”

“Hmm, I can see it now- _Mr James Romanoff_.”

“Why would I take her surname!?”

He was only teasing and we spent the last few yards to the house giggling while I tried to hit him again.


	8. Chapter Eight

**VIII**

On Friday afternoon, following much haggling from me and doubtless the staff as well, Mr Coulson finally acquiesced to letting the downstairs workers have the evening off. My father had left in the early morning to hunt with a neighboring family and my mother had departed to join him after luncheon. They were to remain there all evening and as such no dinner would be served at the castle which left the staff free to spend as much time as they desired at the town fair.

Mr Coulson and Mrs Parker kept the lot of them busy all day, no doubt to ensure they earned their evening off. The maids shined every surface while the hall boys tended to the fireplaces. The footmen cleaned all the silver dishes we used for dinner and even Mr Banner was out in the hot sun scrubbing the motor.

I sat in the cool library, a plate of grapes balancing on my knee while I read the latest issue of the British Medical Journal. Pierce and Brock had unearthed a table tennis game from somewhere and while the sound of the bouncing ball was quiet annoying, the face Brock made when he lost was quite worth it.

Pierce and I didn’t mention our little outing. He still joined in when Brock made fun of me and he had already lobbed several serves in my direction though none of them had even been remotely close.

At four, Steve brought us a tray of tea and biscuits with an assortment of sandwiches. Steve poured us three teas, I alone thanking him. I noticed Steve had his drawing book in his pocket and I wondered if he was practicing for tonight.

“What are you reading?” Steve asked when Brock and Pierce had returned to their game.

I showed him the cover. “Medical journal. I like-”

“It’s the only kind of book he’ll ever see himself in,” Brock interjected rudely. “The only time an author will write about a cripple is when it’s a diagnosis.”

The air became thick with tension. Steve was gaping at Brock as if he couldn’t believe someone would say something so wicked but before he could do something that would culminate in his termination, it was Pierce who stepped in.

“It’s Steven, right?” he said, eyeing Steve up and down. “You’re a big fella. Do you think you could beat me in an arm wrestle?”

The spotlight shifted from me; I was entirely forgotten. Pierce positioned himself on one side of the table and bent over, his arm ready for Steve.

“We won’t tell his Lordship, we promise.”

Steve obliged. He moved opposite Pierce and they clasped hands. The match lasted five very long seconds. In the end, Pierce had managed to pin Steve’s hand.

“Valiant effort, Steven,” Pierce said, straightening his clothes and smiling broadly. “It appears that I am-”

“Shut up, Alex!” Brock growled then rounded on Steve. “You let him win, servant! Come on, me and you!”

Steve faced off with Brock, the most terrifying look in his eyes. It was over in half a second. Steve pinned Brock’s hand so hard the table cracked.

“You’re all a bunch of fucking bastards!” Brock shouted over the sound of Pierce and I roaring with laughter. Brock left the room like a scorned diva cradling his hand and Pierce followed him, still laughing. Steve and I grinned at each other.

“Do you think he’ll try to have me dismissed for that?”

I snorted. “And admit you beat him? Not a chance.”

Steve trailed his finger over the crack in the table, a faint smile pulling at his lips. “Will I see you at the fair later?”

“Of course. I heard someone will be drawing pictures and I simply can’t miss that.”

Steve blushed. I realized that either he was very easy to redden or I simply had a knack for making him colour.

“You’d better get on.” I flattened the journal onto my lap and threw a grape at him. “I’ll see you tonight.”

At half six I caught a ride with Brock and Pierce into the village. Brock had forgotten all about the incident in the library and it appeared as if the pair had been drinking since then. They were both very giggly and Brock hadn’t said one mean thing to me in ten minutes which meant he must have been well drunk.

When we arrived, the motor had barely stopped when the other two had raced out without so much as a goodbye.

“Mr Banner,” I said, exiting much more slowly. “If at the end of the night they are ready to leave and I am not around, please, for heaven’s sake, leave without me. Get them home without being killed…”

Mr Banner smiled tightly and tipped his hat. I watched him leave. Behind me I could hear music and the ripple of many voices and suddenly I wished for a friend.

“You’re late,” said a voice.

“A lord is never late,” I said, turning and grinning. “You lot start too early.”

Samuel grinned. He clapped me on my shoulder and we walked the last street to the fair together.

“It’s a good one this year,” Samuel said. “Better than the last anyway.”

The town square looked unrecognizable. There were booths to one side and games in the center. A four-meter-tall slide shot laughing children out onto the grass. In front of the tailors, a stage had been erected for a four-piece band that was playing to a crowd of villagers. I could see Pierce and Brock already engaged in a game, trying to best each other.

Samuel pointed to a brightly coloured tent. “Beer?”

“Yes, please.”

We joined the queue. In front of us were the two men who’d spoken harsh words about me in the library the day of the opening. I lowered my head and prayed they wouldn’t look back.

We were nearly at the front when we were joined by a pretty black girl I’d never seen before. She’d clearly been attempting to surprise Samuel who nearly jumped out of his shoes when he saw her.

“You’re early!” Samuel said in a high pitched squeaky voice I’d never heard before.

“My lady very kindly let me go earlier,” the women said. She seemed very poised and proper while Samuel seemed to be having an episode of some sort.

“Are you going to introduce us, Samuel?” I said, taking every pleasure in his state of frenzy.

“Yes, oh my, of course. This is Okoye Milaje, lady’s maid to Lady Ramonda. Okoye, this is Mr James Barnes.”

I took off my hat to her and bowed my head. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms Milaje. Please let me buy you a drink, I insist.”

I bought three drinks and we moved out of the queue. I did not want to walk the fair alone but more importantly I did not wish to intrude on Samuel’s evening. I bid Miss Milaje goodbye and whispered to Samuel that he owed me an explanation later.

I wandered away from them, idly surveying the different attractions and pretending like I didn’t know exactly where I was going.

I passed by many of the downstairs staff but I kept my head down. It appeared as if the whole village had come out to enjoy the fair and the square was more lively than I’ve ever seen it.

I found Steve at the very end of the row of booths. There was a short queue, mainly women I noticed. Steve had set up a small easel, loose sheets of paper clipped to the top of the board with a clothespin. The tips of his fingers were smudged black from charcoal and he had a long streak of it on his cheek.

I crept around behind him and peeked over his shoulder. He must have seen me before because his shoulders grew tense and he stopped drawing.

“No need to stop on my account,” I said softly. If I hadn’t been holding a glass I would have tried to rub the tension out of his shoulders. “I’ll come back later.”

I turned and left, the night looking less fun by the minute. Samuel was off with his secret girlfriend and Steve was even too busy for me.

I found a darkened spot near the band where it was away from prying eyes but close enough to hear the music. My drink was nearly finished and suddenly I wished for a cigarette.

“Mind if I sit?” said a gruff male voice.

I looked up. It was the man from Wednesday, the one with the moustache who seemed to be an acquaintance of Steve. He sat down next to me without waiting for an answer.

“Timothy Dugan,” he said, sticking out a strong calloused hand. “My friends call me Dum Dum.”

I put down my beer and grasped his hand. “As an insult?”

Mr Dugan barked out a laugh. “No, laddie. Are you having a good time?”

“Yes,” I lied. “Are you in charge?”

“Sure am. I coordinate events like this, sports games, carnivals, and the like. I’m based up in London.”

“Is that how you know Steve?”

Mr Dugan raised an eyebrow but I couldn’t tell if it was because I’d called Steve by a familiar name or because I knew such facts about my staff.

“Aye, yes. Been friends a long time with the Rogers family, a long time. Easy choice to come here with the fair. Chance to see him.”

“Did he tell you we’ll be up in London at the end of the month?”

“Really? The two of you?”

I had finished my beer and my hand felt nervously empty. “I have several engagements. He will be accompanying me as my valet.”

Mr Dugan looked impressed. He gazed across the square where we could easily see Steve’s booth. “You two make quite the team.”

It was such a strange thing to say. Steve was employed by my father and would only be doing what was asked of him. I didn’t know what Mr Dugan meant.

“Will you need help cleaning up at the end of the night?” I said, simply for something to say.

As soon as I finished speaking I wasn’t sure why I had offered. This night had been a complete waste so far and I felt that I had to at least be useful in some capacity.

Mr Dugan eyed me curiously. I was a one-armed lord but I didn’t like being without use.

“Tell you what,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We take down the kiddy attractions first. You help with that and I’ll buy you a drink when you’re up in London.”

He tipped his ludicrous hat at me and disappeared behind the stage. I watched him go. My gaze then slipped to Steve’s booth that now had no patrons.

I hurried through the throng of people, eager to get there before anyone else. Someone must have told Steve about the mark on his face because when I reached him he was desperately scrubbing at it with the edge of his sleeve.

“That is a hopeless cause without soap,” I drawled, sitting down on the vacant seat in front of him.

Steve looked up at me over his easel, his blue eyes sparkling from the multi-coloured lights of the fair. “Come to tease me?”

“I believe I came here for a portrait or has all this been a ruse to stare at ladies?”

He caught the coins I tossed at him and they disappeared into his coat pocket. I positioned myself on the chair, left shoulder tucked back. Steve was staring at me, his head tilted to the side.

“If I pay extra will you draw me with two arms?”

It was only a half joke.

“Why would I?” Steve had already begun to draw. “You’re perfect with one.”

It was like I’d fallen flat on my back and all the air had been pushed out of my lungs. Steve kept drawing, unaware of the affect his words had had on me. He was chewing on his chapped bottom lip and a strand of hair had fallen into his eyes. His hand was a blur of movement of the page.

“Will you make me pretty?”

I had passed into dangerous territory but I felt brash, reckless. I wanted to see if I could push him further.

Before Steve could answer, if in fact he was going to, we were interrupted by Brock and Pierce who were yelling loudly for me from the road.

“We’re leaving!” Brock shouted. “Are you coming?”

I shook my head lightly at them, trying not to spoil my pose. They marched off together, weaving slightly. Although public drunkenness, especially by the upperclass, was frowned upon, it appeared as if neither of them had much care tonight.

“Finished,” Steve said.

I snapped back to the present. Steve was unclipping the drawing and folding it in half.

I jumped to my feet. A small queue of people had formed behind me without me noticing.

“Oh,” I said stupidly.

I took the drawing from Steve’s outstretched hand. I tucked it away without looking at it.

“Thank you. I’m- well, I’ll see you later then.”

I hurried away like a stuttering idiot, the picture burning a hole in my pocket. I didn’t get very far before Mr Dugan was waving me over to where a small group of men had begun to take down certain attractions.

I was clearly very unwelcome. The other men didn’t speak to me and I couldn’t be sure if it was because I was a noble or because I only had one arm to offer.

I felt diminished, like how I used to feel when I was a child and always felt as if I had to prove myself to everyone. I was stronger than most of the men with only my one arm and I must have done more work than any of them. I moved quickly and severely, knocking into the others more than once. Many of the shops in the village bore my surname but to others I will always be the poor disabled boy who will never amount to anything.

“That was some fine work,” Mr Dugan said to me when we had finished with the last of the children’s games.

I was hot in my jacket and my hand with dirty and scraped from hard work but all I felt now was embarrassment from how I’d acted.

“It was very nice to meet you. I look forward to that drink you owe me.”

Mr Dugan laughed gruffly. My eyes darted unwittingly to Steve’s booth but his art supplies had been packed away and he was gone. I felt more disappointed than perhaps I should have.

I was about to take my leave when Mr Dugan barked out another laugh and said, “That sly fox.”

I followed where he was looking.

Behind the stage, nearly completely invisible from the whole square, was Steve. He had a girl in his arms, a small thing who was standing on the tips of her toes. I recognized her as one of the village’s school teachers. Steve had been drawing her when I’d first visited him in the evening.

There were kissing.

It felt wrong to watch but no matter how much I wanted to I couldn’t look away.

I looked at the girl first. She was a slight woman, small in the waist. Her hands were on Steve’s face, pulling him down. She appeared very plain and it was hard for her to keep my attention.

My eyes slipped over to Steve.

His hands were at her hips, so big he could have picked her up with ease. He had taken off his hat and his hair had blown into his face, nearly reaching his eyes.

His eyes.

His eyes were closed, not tightly like he was trying to pull away. It was as if they’d fluttered closed like he had fallen asleep.

I looked down. His lips were full and pink, moving delicately over hers. It was as if I were in a trance. I couldn’t look away from his mouth.

“You’d better not wait for him,” Mr Dugan said, his voice shattering the spell I’d been under.

“No, I’d better not,” I managed to say.

I turned on my heel and hurried away without so much as a goodbye. Mr Dugan had been nothing but nice to me and I repaid him by acting like a madman. 

For I must be mad. Seeing Steve kiss that girl had done something to me. It had fried my nerves like I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning and then immediately hit by a fast-moving car.

I was halfway home before I realized I was achingly hard in my trousers.

Jarvis greeted me at the door, taking my jacket I all but threw at him. He asked how my evening had passed and I think I said something coherent but I can’t be sure. I ran up the staircase, taking the steps three at a time, and barricaded myself in my bedroom.

The room was pitch black except for a solitary candle that had been left on the dresser. In the mirror above it I could see my own pale, sweaty face breathing heavily and looking like I’d just seen a ghost.

I kicked off my shoes and climbed onto the bed fully clothed. I lay on my back staring up at the canopy. The only thing I could hear was my own loud erratic breathing.

I had of course masturbated before; I was a twenty-two-year-old warm blooded male. I went to church on Sundays and knew it was not allowed in the eyes of God but I did believe there were worse evils.

I licked my hand inelegantly and slid my hand under the waistband of my trousers. At the first touch of my fingers on my cock, I closed my eyes and let my imagination take me back to the fair.

I pictured the girl, first with only her underclothes and then with nothing at all. As I stroked myself, I pictured myself in Steve’s place. I thought of her breasts and how they’d feel in my hand. I thought of what it was feel like if I trailed my hand down past her navel and towards her-

My eyes snapped open and my hand stilled. This wasn’t working. I wet my hand again and tried one more time, this time letting my mind take me wherever it wanted.

I thought of kissing, starting with how it felt with Wanda. Quickly I shifted to the fair. I kept my imagination black, choosing sensation over sight. I imagined strong hands gripping my waist, squeezing and pulling me in closer. I felt full lips, chapped but well-practiced. They kissed confidently, brazenly, always wanting more.

I was close. I felt like my breath was so loud that the whole castle could hear. My hand sped up, taking on a near fervent speed. In my head, I pictured my hand sliding up a warm firm chest and tangling in short soft hair. In the dream, I opened my eyes. Blue ones stared at back me.

With a muted cry, I came into my hand. I lay spent and boneless on the bed for a long time, prolonging the feeling of bliss seemingly more important than cleaning myself. I thought of what I’d imagined and if I concentrated hard enough it was almost as if I could still feel those strong hands touching me. I licked my lips and bit down softly on the bottom one. _That mouth_.

When I finally did clean myself up and get back into bed, I was fast asleep before I could think about what any of that had meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can actually go to the British Medical Journal's website and read every past issue in their archive. There you can read for free the exact issue James would have read in April 1914!


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Bucky says some pretty harsh things about his disability. Absolutely none of these things are true and by the end of this story Bucky will know that too.

**IX**

The train tickets had been purchased and I had been to the tailors to be fitted for new formalwear and, in fact, an entirely new wardrobe. Lady Natasha had written back, eager that I was to visit, and Anthony Stark had told me that for my arrival he had purchased “enough alcohol to put all of London to sleep”.

Steve and I would leave for the city on Friday May the first.

The preceding Sunday, the entire castle fell ill.

It began when one of the maids fainted while cleaning the linen closet in the attic, causing an avalanche of blankets that buried her for nearly ten minutes before she could be found.

Mr Coulson went next, much to his dismay for he frequently proclaims that infirmity is for the weak. By that evening nearly a third of the staff was on bed rest and both Brock and Mother had come down with fevers.

In the morning even his Lordship hadn’t been spared. I checked in on him first, snoring loudly in his chambers. In her rooms next door, mother was clutching a very large cup of tea and was kindly trying not to cough on her lady’s maid.

I gave Brock a wide berth.

I left the house early, eager to be far away from the coughs and whines. I walked the grounds alone, relishing in the extremely warm weather. I had even taken off my shirt for no one was around to see me and no family member was well enough to reprimand me.

It had always been this way. I had not been ill since my youth and it was as if every sickness that passed through the house skipped me. Perhaps it was God’s way of proving his love for me. He had wrongfully taken my arm and had replaced it with an unyielding constitution.

“You’re going to get a sunburn,” came Samuel’s voice.

I opened my eyes. I had laid down on the grass to soak up the sun and I now squinted up at Samuel. He had a self-righteous smirk on his face and a perspiring glass of lemonade balancing on a tray.

“No problem,” I said, sitting up and reaching for the glass. “You can always rub oil on me later if I do.”

Samuel laughed, shaking his head. I drank deeply, grateful for the drink.

“Thank you for this,” I said, tilting my face back up to the sun.

“Those look new.”

I looked over but Samuel wasn’t looking at my face. He was looking at the mostly healed slices on my shoulder from the smashed bottle the night of the Stark party. They were a deep pink but they didn’t hurt anymore.

Steve had been right. They will scar.

“It’s a long story. It… it doesn’t matter.”

Samuel pursed his lips. “You don’t tell me anything anymore.”

“I could say the same about you. How is Miss Milaje?”

I knew I would one day get to the bottom of that story but today was not that day so I changed subjects rapidly. “How is the downstairs managing? I hope the healthy staff aren’t working themselves too hard.”

“It’s okay.” Then- “It’s fine. No, alright, it’s dreadful.”

“Overworked?”

“Not exactly. With the family confined in their rooms, except you of course, the cleaning and the meals don’t need as much attention.”

“So what is it then?”

Samuel’s nostrils flared. “It’s just that… _some_ people are being stupid.”

“Who?” Part of me already knew.

“Let’s just say there is a certain staff member who spent their youth plagued by illness and is now a six-foot-three walking furnace who refuses to stop working.”

_That idiot_.

I stood and took the tray from Samuel so that he could button my shirt in half the time it would have taken me. I gave him back the tray and the empty glass and said, “Go back to work, take it easy. I’ll deal with this.”

I entered through the main door while Samuel went around to the servants’ entrance. It took me ten minutes to find Steve. I nearly blew up at him right then and there. I found him in the servants’ staircase, his face pinched in misery and his forehead resting against the wall. His knees looked half ready to buckle.

“You moron,” I said.

He whipped around, nearly tripping over his own feet. He looked pale and clammy and his whole body was missing his usual tough, sturdy stance.

I climbed the last few steps and clapped a hand over his forehead.

“I’m just cold,” he said lamely.

“It’s twenty-seven degrees outside and you’re _cold_.”

I placed my hand on his back and pushed him up the stairs. He attempted to protest but every time he tried to speak I shouted _no_ until he eventually shut up.

We reached the attic, emerging onto the men’s side of the servants’ quarters. Steve now seemed quite out of sorts so I read the names on the doors until I found the one marked _S. Rogers._

The room was tiny. The ceiling was slanted and so low in parts that Steve had to stoop. I had never seen a servant’s rooms before.

“Bloody hell, it’s like a jail cell.”

Steve didn’t seem to hear me. I sat him down on the bed and began to take off his shoes.

“James,” he said. “I can’t, I… I must tell Mr Coulson.

“Mr Coulson is in the room next to you snoring so loud it’s as if he has turned into a train. But I will tell Mrs Parker that I have taken you up.”

I placed his shoes by the door and started on his clothes. His coat and waistcoat came off easy enough but I couldn’t get his bow-tie off with one hand.

“You’ll have to manage with the rest,” I said, my voice oddly low.

Steve ripped off the bow-tie gracelessly and threw it in the vague direction of the wardrobe. He lay down on the bed and I covered him in every blanket in the room.

“You’ll be alright then? You’ll call Samuel or someone else if you need something?”

Steve nodded into his pillow and then lay still. I was almost at the door when he said it.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

I walked to my room in a daze, not remembering the way as if I’d been magically transported. I didn’t understand how Steve could know that name. Brock didn’t call me that anymore and my parents never had. Uncle Happy was dead and Steve had never met Lady Virginia. Even Samuel didn’t call me that.

I read in my room for the rest of the afternoon feeling restless and awkward, not used to the castle being so quiet. If I listened hard enough I swore I could hear the cook all the way down in the kitchens.

A lone dinner was set for me in the dining room. They didn’t have a footman serve me which seemed far too unnecessary and I didn’t see anything wrong with a single plate, even if the fish and meat did touch.

I told Mrs Parker to let the remaining healthy staff turn in early and that I did not wish to be disturbed for the rest of the evening. I took a bottle of wine from Mr Coulson’s pantry (leaving him a note confessing my theft) and Samuel and I shared my meal and the bottle of wine in the dining room alone. We sat opposite each other at the absurdly long table and I was sure that if my father had seen this, a footman, and a black one at that, dining with a lord he would have dropped dead from a heart attack.

“Are you going to tell me about her?” I asked idly once we’d finished the meal and were sharing a bushel of grapes. The wine had made me pliant and sleepy.

“If I tell you quickly, will you drop it?”

“I can’t understand why you’re being so secretive about this.”

He ignored that remark completely. “We met three months ago in the village and have been corresponding since. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever met and I fell for her the moment I saw her. I have written to her father to ask for her hand in marriage.”

All my stupid brain could come up with to say was, “Oh. Wow, that seems… quick.”

Samuel, who’d been relaxing in his chair, now sat up straight and tense. “See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“What are you talking about?”

He folded his arms and huffed like an angry bull. “I didn’t want to tell you I was getting married because-”

He seemed to realize he’d gone too far and shut his mouth. I drained my glass and poured myself another. What he wasn’t saying was louder than anything he could have said.

“You didn’t want to tell me because you know I’ll never be married.”

Samuel stared down at the tablecloth like it could give him valuable insight. “It’s not… it’s not quite like that.”

“Isn’t it? If I was a commoner I’d be useless. I can’t farm, can’t do manual labour. As a nobleman I might as well be a nobody. I’m ruined. No respectable lord will ever let their daughter marry such an embarrassing excuse for a man.”

Samuel’s eyes were wide and glassy. “Please, James. Don’t talk about yourself that way.”

I should have been angry but instead all I felt was exhaustion. “It’s alright, Sam. I’m not cross with you. It’s simply God’s Will. We should all stop fooling ourselves that I’ll take a wife for who would ever take me?”

“James-”

“I’m happy for you,” I interrupted, “and Miss Milaje. You’re a fine man, Mr Wilson. You’ll make a fine husband.”

I didn’t mean for it to sound like the end of the conversation, like a dismissal, but Samuel cleared the table and left without another word.

I went outside to finish the bottle of wine. The night was clear and the stars were bright. There was a warm breeze that smelled of flowers from the garden and for the first time I wished I did have a wife. I wished I could have had someone I could share in this moment with.

I left the empty bottle on the ground and retreated inside. My footsteps echoed in the empty halls, the whole castle silent as a tomb. My room felt just as hollow and unforgiving and I knew that with the bad taste in my mouth the conversation with Samuel had left me with, I would never get to sleep.

I pulled off my shoes and coat until I was in nothing but my trousers and buttoned shirt. I crept back out into the hallway. My feet padded silently across the carpet and I made for the servants’ staircase. I would simply check on Steve and be able to sleep when I knew he was alright.

The attic was dark, both the men’s and women’s side fast asleep. The only light I could see was coming from the crack under Steve’s door.

I crept over quietly and knocked softly. I didn’t expect him to answer so I waited only a moment before I pushed it open and stuck my head in.

The first thing I noticed was that Steve’s bed was empty. The second thing I noticed was that the light I’d seen from under the door was coming from the fireplace where a dying fire was burning in the grate.

And what I’d first surmised to be a discarded mound of blankets on the floor in front of the fire was, in fact, Steve.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

I closed the door behind me. Steve was fast asleep when I knelt beside him. His face was still clammy but the blankets were scorching to the touch.

“Steve, wake up.”

I fetched him a glass of water from the pitcher by the bed and when I went back to him his eyes were beginning to open.

“Sorry to wake you,” I said flatly, “but if you don’t move you’re going to set yourself on fire.”

I managed to get him half seated, my bent knee propping up his back.

“Drink,” I ordered. I shoved the glass into his hand and, mercifully, he drank. He stared at me over the glass like he couldn’t remember who I was.

“Yes, yes, it’s me. Let’s get you back into bed.”

I half picked him up, half dragged him back to bed. He lay down obediently and hid under the mass of blankets I piled on top of him.

“Better now? I don’t fancy finding your charred remains in the morning. Laying in front of the fire, honestly…”

Even under the mound of blankets, I could tell that Steve was trembling.

I found myself at a very problematic crossroad. I could leave the room like the nobleman I was who owed this servant no more of my time and forget all about him.

Or I could climb into bed with him.

The decision was probably too easy.

I pulled back the covers. Steve hissed at the rush of cold air. He began to turn, looking half ready to curse me out, but froze when he felt me sit down.

“Budge up there, this bed isn’t very big.”

We managed, somehow, to fit two grown men on a very tight bed. I curled my knees behind his and placed my head on his pillow, so close I could smell the sweet scent of his soap.

“Okay?” I said.

I tried to get comfortable but the bed was simply too small. I gave up, tucking my bad arm under me and laying my right arm as delicately as I could over Steve’s waist. This night and my reputation was already smashed to pieces so I might as well go for broke.

The room was dead silent, the faraway sound of the wind hitting the window reminding me of how very alone we were now.

As Steve’s shallow breath slowly evened, I wondered if he would remember any of this in the morning.

Perhaps worse was did I want him to. 


	10. Chapter Ten

**X**

The water was cool and fresh and I could feel the reeds at the bottom trying to ensnare my feet. It was noon, the sun shining exceptionally bright over my head, and when I closed my eyes I could see dim orange light through my eyelids.

Every time I thought of my actions from last night I felt ashamed. I was nothing more than what Brock had whispered in my ears as a child, what he said to my face now.

I should have been a commoner. I act like one, treat them like my equals. I should not have spared a simple manservant a second thought but I spent an entire night in bed with one until his fever broke.

Brock was right about me. I am a disgrace.

I sunk underwater and remained there as long as my lungs would allow. When I resurfaced, my mother was standing at the edge of the dock.

“Are you intentionally trying to get sick? Really, James…” She had my towel in her hands which she brandished as would a pushy salesman.

“I never intentionally do anything, mother,” I said, pulling myself up onto the dock. “It’s simply a happy coincidence that everything I do annoys you.”

She put the towel around my neck, probably tighter than was necessary and scowled, clearly irritated.

We set off together back to the castle, neither speaking. I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking she genuinely cared for my health; more than likely I was either being summoned for something or she didn’t want anyone to see me without a shirt.

“Are you feeling better?”

She side-eyed me as if she thought I was testing her. “Fine. Much better, thank you.”

We parted in the Great Hall. She walked straight to the library without so much as a _goodbye_ and I angrily stomped up the main staircase.

I dressed hurriedly or at the very least tried to. I didn’t make it very far. The more frustrated I became the more my fingers slipped on the buttons.

I rang servants’ the bell and counted. In twenty-three seconds, Samuel was knocking on my door and letting himself in.

“Can you help me, please?”

Wordlessly he batted my hands away and began where I’d given up. There were a lot of unspoken words from yesterday we should have aired but I didn’t have a clue where to begin and I have never been very good at this part.

He finished with my shirt and fetched my tie. I said, “Do you think there’s something wrong with this?”

“With a paisley tie? Yes, everything.”

I appreciated the jibe but it didn’t make me feel any better.

“I mean our close friendship. I’m highborn and you’re in service. I shouldn’t care about you or ask after your life or speak to you the way I do.” _Or sleep in the same bed as one of you_.

Samuel finished tying but didn’t move to get my coat.

“Permission to speak freely, Mr James?”

He was smiling lightly so I humoured him. “Granted.”

He sat down on my bed, something he would never do to anyone else of my status.

“James, we can’t change the hand we’re dealt no matter how much we may want to. It’s God’s will and we must honour the plan He has for all of us. Who we are is defined by how His plan makes us act. Being as you are has made you sad and lonely and miserable but it has also made you kind.”

“Sure,” I grumbled.

“I mean it, I do. I know you don’t want to hear this but the person who will forever pity you the most is you.”

He stood and retrieved my coat, throwing it to me which I only barely caught.

“You’ll still always be my best friend, your lordship.”

His hand was on the door when I said, “When you’ve settled on the date… can I come to the wedding?”

His whole face broke into a smile, the likes of which I had not seen for a long while. “Of course you can. If that will be all, your highness.”

He left me alone then and I spent most of the afternoon thinking about what he’d said even if it wasn’t the answer I had been expecting. At three, while mother had tea alone in the library, I called for tea and two cups to my bedroom. When Darcy had dropped it off, stumbling over her words and blushing at my thanks, I waited for her footsteps to retreat and left my room with the tea tray.

I had resolved not to feel embarrassed. I was a lord and could go anywhere in my home and interact with whomever I wished. I had befriended Samuel and he had proved to be a wonderful companion.

Steve was no different.

The servants’ hall was empty. I balanced the tray precariously on my bad arm and my chin and knocked on Steve’s door before I could lose my nerve. Steve’s voice sounded small and weak when he granted my entrance.

I pushed open the door. Steve was sitting up in bed, his hair a wild mess and his cheeks tinted pink (whether from me or the fever I couldn’t tell).

“Mr James.” He looked confused. “Is there something wrong? Is there something I can do for you?”

“No, nothing is wrong. Stay for God’s sake,” I added when Steve tried to rise.

I stood for a moment, unsure of myself and unsure of what to do with the tray. The only table was full of papers and candles and I couldn’t clear it with only one hand. In the end, I placed the tray on the floor and stood ramrod straight, my face a million degrees.

Steve looked more confused by the second. He peered at the tray and said, “Is this from Mrs Parker? Why are there two cups?”

My courage evaporated in an instant but Steve caught on before I could run from the room and never look at Steve in the eyes again.

“Oh,” he said, his eyes as wide as coins. “Would you like to join me, Mr James?”

All the cards were on the table now and it would do more damage to backtrack so I agreed and poured two cups. Steve accepted his, his eyes never leaving my face. I pulled Steve’s hardback desk chair to the center of the room and sat, so straight I could feel exactly where every inch of the chair was digging into my back.

“How are you feeling?” I asked finally, trying to bring some normalcy back to the room that seemed smaller and hotter than it had the day before.

“Much better, thank you,” he said, staring at his tea, now suddenly unable to look at me. “I think I was being a bit of an idiot.”

“You were indeed. One more day would have done you in, I think.”

He laughed lightly and some of the tension eased out of the room. While Steve adjusted his pillows I took a moment to look around the room in the light.

It was small but well kept. There was no dust, no marks on the floor. The wardrobe was closed and latched and his two pairs of shoes were laying clean and polished near the door. The fireplace was well used, black soot marks permanently marring the stone. On the mantle above it Steve had placed some personal artifacts: a photo of a woman who could only have been his mother, a gold ring that looked heavy and pristine, two sets of playing cards, and a charcoal drawing of a monkey in people clothes riding on a unicycle.

“It’s been a couple weeks now,” I began conversationally. “Do you like Howling Castle?”

Steve nodded and smiled his first big smile. “I do, I’m very happy to be working here.”

“Where were you employed before? Still in service?”

“Yes, in Bristol. It was a small house, the children some ten years older than Mr Barnes. It was only me, the cook, and one lady’s maid. It was not a very exciting position.”

“Is that why you left?”

“That and-” He blushed. “-something else.”

I leaned forward, grinning. “What is it? And don’t play coy, you must tell me.”

Steve looked around the room like something from the shadows would spare him but he yielded in the end.

“My employer’s sister grew very, er, fond of me. She kept coming around unannounced, sometimes on purpose when no others were at the house. She was nearing seventy but had strength like you wouldn’t believe…”

I snorted into my tea while Steve looked very flustered and busied himself with his blankets.

“I didn’t know you had it in you, Mr Rogers.”

“Nothing happened!”

I smirked. “First it’s enthusiastic gentlewomen and then unassuming school teachers at a fair for children. Who’s next?”

Steve looked positively mortified. “You saw?”

I was trying very hard not to laugh. “How could I not. You two might as well have had a large banner above your heads.”

Steve placed his empty cup on top of the papers on his bedside table and hid his face from me in his hands. Enjoying this immensely, I poured myself more tea and leaned over to refill Steve’s cup. Not intending to pry but unable to stop myself, I glanced at Steve’s papers.

“Your drawings?” I asked.

Steve’s head snapped up, seemingly startled that I was much closer. I quickly moved back.

“Yes. I don’t read many books if I’m being honest. The time I get for myself I much prefer to sketch.”

He leafed through the stack, showing me some of his favourites. He had drawn some parts of the castle- what the grand hall looked like at sundown and the gardens. He didn’t draw many people I noticed but there were a few rough drawings of Mr Coulson mid-shout or Darcy doing a funny dance in the servants’ dining room. There was one in particular he seemed hesitant to show me which I understood for when I finally did see it, it was a very crude cartoon of Brock’s stallion sitting on his back for a change.

When he reached the bottom of the stack, Steve suddenly froze and buried the last few pages under the rest. He remained suspended for a moment and he looked so hesitant that I decided not to ask.

“Can I ask you a very personal question that only comes from a good place and if you do not want to answer you absolutely do not have to?” Steve said.

I became suddenly very nervous. “Okay.”

Steve looked at me straight on as if to say there was no nonsense here and he was being very serious. “Have you ever thought about… I mean, have you ever… is there a reason you don’t wear a prosthetic arm?”

I blinked at him in surprise. Of everything I thought he could say, that was not one of them. I relaxed. This one was easy to answer.

“I have worn a prosthetic before. In fact I’ve worn four different ones, each as awful as the last.”

“You don’t like how they look?”

I shook my head. “I don’t like how they feel, both strapped to me and how they feel in my head. They never fit right, the belts too tight or the material leaving my skin rubbed raw.”

Steve eyebrows were pinched together, a look I was getting far too accustomed to seeing. “Please don’t mistake my next question as a suggestion for I like you just fine without one. If you were to find one that fit just right, would you wear one?”

It had been years since my last attempt and if I was being honest I didn’t think about it much anymore. So I shrugged and said, genuinely, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Steve smiled lightly and let the subject drop. We talked for a while after until the tea had gone cold and forgotten. We spoke about easy things and I found that conversation with Steve was almost as easy as it was with Samuel. It was nearing six when I finally collected to cups and tucked the tray under my arm. Steve thanked me for a wonderful yet surprising afternoon and I was almost at the door when he spoke again.

“I had a dream about you last night,” he said, his head tilted to the side, eyes full of curiosity.

“Do you dream about me often, Steve Rogers?” I said, teasing.

“I dreamt that you came to my room and stayed with me all night.”

I froze. My blood ran cold. “Your dreams sound very boring, I’m afraid. Perhaps next time we’ll be fighting pirates or racing fast cars.”

Steve was still looking at me funny. “Perhaps.”

I had opened the door and was almost in the clear when Steve said, “I have one more thing to ask of you.”

“Anything,” I said, too easily.

“If you’re to call me Steve may I call you James?”

It was brash, too forward for a servant. It was not proper and he was asking for too much. I should have said no.

I didn’t want to.

“In front of the others you will still call me Mr James. When it’s just us two, you may call me whatever you like.”


	11. Chapter Eleven

**May 1914**

**XI**

Friday morning dawned rainy and foggy which made the ride to the train station bleak and cold though not even that could dampen my spirits.

London wasn’t my favourite place, not by far, but I was about to have a week away from my parents, seven whole days without Brock. This was in no means a vacation for in my parents eyes charming Lady Natasha was practically a job. I, however, was looking at this time away as furlough.

The ride to the station was short but gave me enough time to wake up properly. Steve, well recovered and excited for a trip away, sat up with Mr Banner and talked nearly the entire ride. When we finally arrived, Mr Banner, who is not by nature a talkative man, seemed relieved.

We were a few minutes early, the train not yet having arrived. Steve fussed over the luggage and checked and rechecked our tickets. It was amusing to watch him fuss. I wondered if he had ever taken a trip like this with his old employers or if this was his first.

The train arrived at ten to nine, much to our tickets’ relief as all of Steve’s fidgeting had almost torn them.

Steve took care of the luggage and we said goodbye on the platform for he would ride in third class while I in first.

The trip itself was pleasant enough, though dull. It wasn’t proper for a man of lower-class to ride in first but I thought that the ride would have been much more enjoyable had Steve been by my side.

We arrived in London some twenty minutes before noon. The weather was much more agreeable, sunny with a cool breeze, and the prospect of meeting and staying with the Romanoff’s seemed much less daunting.

The family chauffeur picked us up promptly in a car that was much nicer than my father’s. I had not visited London in two years and as we drove very little seemed familiar to me. Steve, whom I’d asked to sit with me in the back, pointed out shops and streets he’d frequented when he’d lived here and the London in Steve’s eyes was far more beautiful than what I was seeing.

The car stopped at the ornate front gates of the Romanoff estate and the driver exited to open them for us. The final hundred yards to the manor were so exquisite that Steve utterly forgot himself.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, James,” he murmured. Unthinking, for surely he would never do this if he were levelheaded, he reached out and his hand found my knee. He gave it an affectionate squeeze as if we were old friends and he was not under my employment. I was too speechless to say anything and when he let go I couldn’t be sure if it had even happened at all.

There was no time for rumination however for we had stopped in front of the reception party.

The downstairs folk were lined up on one side of the door, the family opposite them. It all seemed too great a greeting for me.

“Welcome to our home, Mr James,” said Mr Romanoff, accepting my hand in an iron grip.

“It’s my pleasure, sir.”

I bowed to Mrs Romanoff and exchanged similar words. Lady Natasha was standing beside her mother looking exceptionally beautiful with the same playful look on her face she’d had at Stark Tower.

“It’s nice to see you again, James.”

“You as well, Lady Natasha. I am honoured by your invitation.”

The family began to retreat inside; the servants went the other direction towards their entrance. I glanced back. The butler was aiding Steve with my luggage who looked up and caught my eye. He grinned at me but I was ushered into the house and could not return it.

My first afternoon at the Romanoff estate passed by in a very fast blur. I was nervous, less so when I was with Lady Natasha, but more so in front of her parents. Brock had received five invitations to the homes of eligible ladies in the last four years while this was my first. I knew all the protocol by heart but it was very different to put it into practice.

I spent the afternoon with the Natasha. She showed me the gardens and introduced me to her prize horse. We toured the house and spent time admiring the art her father had collected. I did not feel awkward in her presence and I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad for I have always believed that those you fancy should make you tongue-tied.

We didn’t speak about what my being here could mean. We didn’t talk about marriage or courting and we certainly never engaged in any untoward behaviour. 

Although Lady Natasha was a wonderful woman and would make a fine wife, as I went to sleep after the first day I realized I felt nothing for her beyond friendship.

On the second day I went shooting with her father. Dinner the night before had gone smoothly though I had felt a certain coldness from Mr Romanoff that hadn’t been there when we’d first met. It was for this reason that I was surprised when he sought me out after breakfast to ask if I would be interested in accompanying him and some of his friends on a hunt.

He didn’t ask if I needed special equipment or a modified gun. I hoped he was merely treating me as he would anyone else but I wasn’t that naïve. If this was some form of test it wouldn’t be the first time that someone had set me up to fail.

We left at ten. Steve had helped me dress and seemed excited that he was coming along for he had never been on a hunt before. Typically on such an occasion I would be paired off with a Lady but Mr Romanoff did not believe that ladies should be involved in sport of any kind and thus Lady Natasha was not permitted to come.

We set off in two carriages, the noblemen in one and our men in the other. The dogs ran beside us, leading the way down a well-worn path.

The whole trip, as I sat silent while the other men joked and laughed, I couldn’t help but think pessimistically on this whole endeavor. Mr Romanoff had either lured me out here to keep me away from his daughter or, perhaps more sinisterly, was doing this solely to embarrass me. When the carriages stopped and we exited I was already in a sour mood and the hunt hadn’t even begun.

We set off on foot, veering into different directions. Steve walked beside me carrying both guns, looking at the English countryside like he’d never seen it before.

“Did the others show you what to do?” I asked him, a cold breeze ruffling my hair. I wished I had a nip of whisky.

“Yes, Mr Collingswood gave me a lesson.” Steve sent me a brilliant smile. “I pick things up rather quickly.”

“I’m sure you do,” I mumbled.

I wasn’t cross at Steve, not in the slightest. I was in one of my moods, one where I believed everyone was out to get me when they’re probably not, and I knew I wouldn’t snap out of it for hours. We stopped at the first place that had a good vantage point and I stared across the moors.

“I brought a sandwich if you’re hungry,” Steve said.

“No, thank you.”

“I lied, it’s not a sandwich. I brought whisky.”

Steve handed me a flask and just like that, somehow, Steve had changed the tide.

The hunt began and Steve was right- he did catch on quickly. He loaded one weapon while I fired and we switched when I was out. He loaded quickly and precisely, like in everything he did.

That was Steve Rogers.

Quick and precise.

I shot exceptionally well which felt good for a number of reasons. I had the disadvantage for I could not hold the gun steady with my non-trigger hand. Some of the gentlemen would rest it on a fence or a bit of rock that provided camouflage from the birds but I had never found that to be comfortable. I fired single handed and if we had counted I was sure I would have had the most kills.

When I needed a break, I drop opened the barrel and handed the gun to Steve who took it as if in a trance.

“That was- you’re amazing,” he said.

The compliment was so sincere that it took me completely off guard. I managed a small, bewildered small and didn’t say anything back.

The others took their lunch standing, a few paces from the carriages. I stood off to the side with Steve who had chosen to stand with me rather than with the other servants. In fact, he kept glancing at them so often and with a face full of contempt that I was sure he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

“Did they do something offensive to you, Rogers?” I had finished my lunch and felt like gossiping. “You keep looking at them with such malice my imagination is running wild as to what they’ve done to you.”

“I’d rather not say, Mr James.” He tried to look aloof but I’d been dealing with this all my life and he might as well have been shouting it.

“It was about me, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

Steve, I realized, was a terrible liar.

“None of the men nor their masters believe I’m a suitable match for Lady Natasha.”

“No,” Steve lied again.

I reached over and poked his hand. “You don’t need to protect me, Steve. I know I’m not right for a lady like her.”

“Don’t say that. Any lady would be lucky to have you. Anybody would.”

I found Steve’s total and complete faith in me curiously amusing. “A second son who won’t inherit his father’s estate?”

“You’re still incredibly wealthy.”

“A sullen, impatient, dickhead who spends most of his days wallowing in self-pity?”

Steve thought harder on that one. “It gives you a Jane Austen-esque allure.”

“The fact that I won’t ever be able to actually hold a wife?”

“Marriage is fairly binding, I’m sure you’ll be able to keep her.”

I laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I was trying to spare your feelings, Mr James. With that one skinny arm of yours I’m surprised you can hold anything at all.”

If it weren’t for the tree cover I never would have done what I did in view of the others. I barked out a laughed and lunged at him, wrapping my arm around his neck. He squirmed and laughed under me as we grappled for the upper hand. He was much bigger and much stronger but I was quicker. The game ended when either his feet or mine tripped and we went sprawling to the dirt.

Steve landed on top of me like a very warm refrigerator and rolled off quickly, laughing.

Everything felt easy with Steve. As I lay on the hard earth, grinning from ear to ear, I realized I didn’t care if Mr Romanoff didn’t like me and wouldn’t let me marry his daughter. I was young, too young for marriage I thought, and it was moments like this that I didn’t want to miss.

“What day are we set to meet with Mr Dugan?” I asked, tilting my head up to look at Steve. He was already looking back at me.

“Thursday evening.”

I hummed. “You’ll see your mother that day?”

“If it’s still alright with you.”

From beyond the trees, the dogs began to bark once more.

“Of course it’s alright, Steve.” I stood and held out my hand for him. “I always keep my promises.”

He gripped my hand, a firm look on his face. “I will hold you to that.

We finished the hunt mid-afternoon and returned to the Romanoff estate, hot and dirty. A maid in the foyer announced that baths had already been drawn and Steve followed me upstairs to take my hunting clothes to be washed.

“What a horrid day,” I said to Steve when we were alone in my chambers. The room I had been given was called the Purple Room and it felt like I was living inside a giant plum.

“You don’t like hunting?” Steve asked, taking my hat.

“Of course I like hunting, I’m a human male. I just… don’t like being in situations where I’m automatically pitied.”

I shrugged off my jacket and ripped off my tie. The buttons on my waist coat were tight from disuse and I quickly gave up.

“Steve, can you-”

He undid them quickly and started on my shirt without me needing to ask.

“Can I ask you a question you may not want to hear?”

I was sure that gentle giant Steve Rogers could never and had never asked a mean question in his life so I acquiesced.

“Do you think that, sometimes, in certain situations, you expect or seek out pity when in fact there is none?”

“And why would I do that?”

Steve now looked as if he regretted asking all together. “So that if it does happen if won’t feel as hurtful.”

I spoke without thinking. “That’s an awful thing to say. Why would you even ask me that?”

Steve had finished with my shirt and stepped back. I stood in front of him in nothing but my trousers feeling guilt coiling in my stomach like a snake.

“I think you’ll find that life is much more agreeable if you don’t try to guess what people are thinking and certainly if you are always expecting the worst.”

“Can you guess what I’m thinking now?” I growled. I tore off my trousers until I was in nothing but my pants.

“I think you’re thinking that I’m right,” Steve said with all the confidence in the world like he was King bloody Edward. 

I let out a string of expletives, my one hand curled into a tight fist. “Why are you even asking me this?! You shouldn’t be asking me this! I’m your fucking employer, Steven fucking Rogers!”

“Grant,” he said.

I deflated slightly. “What?”

“My middle name isn’t _fucking_ , it’s Grant.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard him swear. I suddenly felt very silly standing there, nearly naked, and shouting at one of the few people I’d call a friend.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally.

“It’s my fault for asking.”

“You’re probably right about everything.”

“I know I am.”

I stepped towards the bathroom and gestured at my clothes. “You’d better get on with it.”

“Yes, Mr James.”

When Steve had left and I was laying quite contently in the bath, I decided that Steve was right even if I had difficulty believing it.

At dinner, I sat next to Natasha who looked positively stunning in a blood red dress and I wondered, just for a moment, if these few days would be the first of hundreds we would spend together. I did not love her, not yet, but most married couples do not marry for love. If we were lucky, the love would come later.

I went to sleep that night feeling hopeful for the first time. She had danced with me at Anthony’s party and she knew I wasn’t the first born. Now I was here at her parent’s estate upon her invitation.

In the morning we walked side by side to church and the conversation was effortless. When she asked me to accompany her on the long way back to the estate, alone, I believed that that was nothing but a sign for good news.

I was mistaken.

Much later, when I was in my room while Steve packed my things for we were leaving tomorrow, I told him the truth of what she’d told me.

“She’s in love with someone else,” I said, the statement hanging in the air like dense fog.

“What?” Steve looked excessively outraged like he had expected a proposal and nothing else was feasible.

I laid on my back on the wide bed and stared up at the canopy. “It’s some highborn gentleman, she didn’t say the name. They spent their youth together but he married another and is happy with three little ones.”

“That’s-” Steve appeared to struggle for the right words. “- unanticipated.”

“Is it really? I let myself hope that something more could come of this but I was being foolish. She’s perfect. I have nothing to offer someone like her.”

Steve’s hands slowed then stilled. “You always speak so little of yourself,” he said lowly.

I looked over at him. His expression wasn’t sad but rather disappointed, like a parent who wished their child would make different decisions.

When he had finished laying out the clothes I would wear tomorrow he said, “Why did she ask you here? If she knew she could never love another, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I would have been within reason to be cross with her but I found I had nothing in my heart for her but the highest regard. “Perhaps she was trying to see if she could get over the man. Perhaps I was not enough.”

Steve looked over at me flatly and I half expected another jab about how I needed to love myself more but he remained quiet.

With all my things packed away and his job complete, Steve sat down on the chair by the fire and took out his drawing book.

“Are you eager to visit Mr Stark tomorrow?” Steve asked. His large hand was already flying over the paper in wide strokes.

“Yes, I suppose.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the delicate way he held the pen. If he was trying to distract me he was succeeding impossibly fast. “He’s the most eccentric man I’m sure I’ll ever meet but the speed at which he took to me frightens me to this day.”

Steve tried hard not to smirk. “I see a pattern here. Everyone you meet gravitates towards you because they enjoy your company so much, whatever could that mean…”

I threw one of the many bed pillows at him. He brushed it away with ease.

“Anyways, you should meet him. He cares almost as much about upper-class standards as I do. By the end of our visit I’m sure you will have wounds from one of his many insane games and a nickname that he will forever call you by even when you ask him not to…”

Steve beamed. “What does he call you?”

“That is absolutely none of your business! And don’t bother asking Lady Virginia because I have sworn her to secrecy.”

Steve laughed, bright and clear. His attention was still focused on his drawing and I was able to look at him uninterrupted.

He had white, straight teeth- much better than many of the Lords and Ladies I knew. His hair was cut to the perfect length that was demanded when in service but it suited him. His lips were plump and pink, almost like a girl’s. He had laugh lines beside his eyes and an indent in his lip like he often chewed it.

When he had finished drawing, he stowed the book away in his pocket and stood up. Backlit by the fire, he looked like a true Austen hero.

Perhaps it was the emotional toll the last few days had caused or I simply needed a reminder of home but whatever the reason was, I crossed the room and embraced Steve. He hugged me back without pause.

“Thank you, Steve,” I murmured.

His arms tightened around me and I wished I had another arm to do the same. “For what?”

“For not asking me if she was lying.”


End file.
